Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2009/May/28

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the stub template and/or category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was Keep.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I got a note from a member of WPMIX asking me to restore this template, which had been deleted ages ago for lack of use and nonproposedness. See also a brief entry on the Discoveries page. The project does have a talk page template, so I'm not sure why this would be needed. Pegship (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support keeping the stub template, it differentiates between the other stubs Template:mixed-drink-stub and Template:cocktail-stub, as it is a "job" or occupation-related stub. --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True, but it's only used on 3 articles. To justify a stub category, it would need to be used on 30+ (since there's a project). I suggest we upmerge it again, this time to Cat:Occupation stubs. Pegship (talk) 22:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What does upmerging do again? --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It keeps the template, but sorts it (and articles using it) to a larger, more general stub category or categories (in this case, Cat:Occupation stubs) until it gets large enough to support its own category - which in this case would mean 30 stubs using it. You can still see what uses it by way of its "what links here" link, but wouldn't create a tiny extra category to patrol. I'd support upmerged template, BTW Grutness...wha? 23:37, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that seems reasonable to support upmerged template. --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep it is not an occupational stub but a stub representing the whole field of bartending; The {{cocktail-stub}} (which is depreciated) and {{mixed-drinks-stub}} are solely for actual cocktails and mixed drinks. The {{bartending-stub}} is for articles about the profession and the equipment used in it. Yes there are currently only three stubs using it, however I have a bot request to tag all Cat:bartending articles with the {{wpmix|bar=yes}} banner. Once that has done, I intend to request another bot run an auto-assessment on the articles and tag the stubs with the stub. If you had simply asked me my intentions I could have explained this to you. --Jeremy (blah blah) 01:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your intentions seemed clear enough, and I did leave you a message on your talk page. Now, how is this template about the occupation of bartending not an occupational stub?? Pegship (talk) 15:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC) P.S. No one is suggesting (currently) that we eliminate this type, just to follow approved guidelines in implementing it.[reply]

• Ahhh. In that case, it's likely that a delete may be a better choice than an upmerge. You seem to be wanting to use this as a WP-specific assessment template, which isn't what stub templates are for (see here). I'm not sure why you think {{cocktail-stub}} should have been deprecated - it's still in use by stub-sorters, who are the people responsible for stub templates, and is in use on around 100 articles. Nor is it clear why it has a {{cocktail-stub/doc}}, since stub templates specifically do not have /doc files. Grutness...wha? 01:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the policy about stub templates not having /doc pages? I couldn't find it at WP:STUB and I wouldn't think a /doc page would be controversial, if one existed, nor contrary to the Stub Sorting project. --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All stub templates use WP:STUB as a default /doc file - that's why none of the thousands of other stub documents have /doc pages. Basically, they'd all be identical, since stub templates are all used in an identical way, which would mean having one /doc file linked from about 3000 templates. Any links to WikiProjects are always kept well away from the template, and should only be in the stub category. Grutness...wha? 13:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ahhh, no. I mean to tag the bartending stubs as such. In this case there are several overlapping categories associated with this stub, Cat:Stub-Class Mixed Drinks articles, Cat:Mixed drink stubs and Cat:bartending stubs. The bartending stubs are so the Bartending WikiProject can separate bartending articles from the broader mixed drink stub-class articles and mark said articles that require expansion. It is not to identify bartending articles as per the WP 1.0 Assesments. Beyond that, and contrary to Pegship's assertion, the Bartending WikiProject does not have its own banner, it shares one with the Mixed Drinks WikiProject and the banner does not assess bartending articles separately - hence the needing of a separate bartending stub banner. Also, don't you usually find those articles that are classed as stubs also have stub templates on them as well? There is a symbiotic relationship between the two.

I also agree with Fun, where is it written that there should not be a doc subpage on stub templates? The doc sub page is an excellent place to explain what standards we use to deploy the particular stub template as to avoid overlap between disparate projects. With drink related Projects, we have five related WikiProjects and Task forces, WP:Wine, WP:Beer, WP:Spirits, WP:Bartending and WP:Pubs, and the various alcohol related stub are useful in defining borders and overlapping territories.

As for the depreciating of the {{cocktail-stub}}, when the Cocktails WikiProject was renamed as the Mixed Drinks WikiProject all associated templates, categories and classifications were supposed to be switched over to the new naming structure. This is just one of the things that was missed (I am still finding things that are left over or weren't moved), and on articles it was deployed it should have been switched over to the {{mixed-drinks-stub}} template.

Finally, I have identified at least 25 bartending stubs and tagged them as such. According to the WP:Stub page the 30 articles denoted as stubs is not concrete when the stubs are the main stub category used by a WikiProject - this number can be waived. to quote: A good number means about 60 articles or more, or 30 or more if it is the primary stub type of a WikiProject, though this figure may vary from case to case. --Jeremy (blah blah) 02:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good points, Jerem43. Change my vote to keep, to let the WP:MIX project do what it needs to do. --Funandtrvl (talk) 04:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not all of them are good points; many of them are quite the opposite - many of them indicate a clear misunderstanding of stub types, as I feared, and others indicate other misunderstandings of the way stub types are handled. "There are several overlapping categories associated with this stub, Cat:Stub-Class Mixed Drinks articles, Cat:Mixed drink stubs and Cat:bartending stubs" - those are two stub categories and an assessment category - completely different things which cannot be mixed. It's like saying you'll make a cocktail with drambuie, schnapps, and a bicycle. The same misunderstanding crops up in the sentence: "The bartending stubs are so the Bartending WikiProject can separate bartending articles from the broader mixed drink stub-class articles". This is wrong on two counts: First, stubs aren't for a specific wikiproject to do anything; second, Stub-Class articles are not stubs - often in fact, a Stub-Class article won't be marked as a stub, and things marked as stubs may be Start-Class. The two are not identical and serve different purposes. Then there's reference to a "stub banner", which again indicates a misunderstanding of what stub templates are for. They are not for specific WikiProjects - they cover Wikipedia as a whole. Where a specific WikiProject needs to mark the articles associated with it, it's far more useful to all concerned to use a banner template - that is, one which goes at the top of the talk page and can be used to assess all articles. The best way for WP:MIX to "do what it needs to do" is to have its own assessment template so that it can cover all the articles within its project, not just the stubs. As I pointed out before, this is explained at Wikipedia:Stub#Stub_types.2C_WikiProjects.2C_and_Assessment_templates. All having a stub template will do is mean that stub-sorters have an extra template to deal with, and WP:MIX will fail to list any of its articles which are beyond stub length.

"The doc sub page is an excellent place to explain what standards we use to deploy the particular stub template as to avoid overlap between disparate projects." Again, the same misunderstanding. Stub templates are not deployed by and for specific wikiprojects, they are used across Wikipedia as a whole and all are used in exactly the same way. That is why the WP:STUB page serves as a de facto /doc file for them all. If you want to have a template which can be used to delineate between specific tasks within a WikiProject, you need a WikiProject banner assessment template as I have said above.

As for the deprecating of cocktail-stub, as I said, it is still in used by the people who use stub templates,m and no proposal has ever been made to stop using it (which would require either its redirection or deletion. Such a proposal for redirection or proposal should have happened here at WP:SFD or at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals.

Finally, you are right that the 60 stub and 30 stub levels are not set in stone. often, it will be the case that 60 stubs is seen as too many, and this target may be dropped or raised accordingly. Similarly, the 30 target may be raised if it seems that a stub type is too similar to another similar type. 30, though, is already a very low level for a viable stub category, especially since it is likely that a WikiProject would likely be looking to expand any stubs it has (in which case the number is likely to drop). Less than 300 really is far too low for a category to be reasonable - it's far simpler to list the names of any stubs of a page in that instance, or to use "what links here', or - beest yet - to mark the talk pages of those articles with an assessment template.

Please, read Wikipedia:Stub#Stub_types.2C_WikiProjects.2C_and_Assessment_templates. It explains the difference between stub articles and Stub-Class articles and between stub templates used across Wikipedia and Assessment banner templates for use by specific WikiProjects. Hopefully you will realise that the latter of the two is more likely to be of use to you. Grutness...wha? 13:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As the person who probably created the {{bartending-stub}} template clear back in early 2007 (and if I didn't actually create it, I apologize to whomever did, but I created so many mixed-drink and bartending related templates back then that's it's hard to remember which was which), I'd like to chime in on this discussion.

First, Grutness is certainly correct. "Stub templates" have next to nothing to do with a category assessment rating of "stubb class" articles. As I understood it (it's been a while since I delved into stub sorting), the stub identifier in an article is added to articles that meet certain requirements of length (primarily) and to a lesser extent, apparent degree of completeness of the article. The second only really applies if there is just so little to be said about a topic that an article is unlikely to ever be more than a stub, yet somehow manages to be notable and verifiable (and such are rare). Thus, length is the most common criteria. Article assessment is more subjective (though there are guidelines, and WikiProjects seem to have more latitude in developing those than they do in stub sorting guidelines). Am I correct so far, Grutness?

Assuming I am correct (or roughly so), then it becomes apparent why Grutness feels that a documentation page is unnecessary for a template that is based almost solely upon article length, uses a single meta template to generate output, and should appears in a standard location in every applicable article. Documentation in that case is pretty superfluous.

The point that the WP:BAR, WP:MIX, and WP:F&B members are trying to make concerning documentation is that there are situations where {{bartending-stub}} should be used in an article, and in others {{mixed-drink-stub}} should be used, or even {{alcohol-stub}} might be a better choice. There are several similar categories, and the doc page was being used to help direct people to the appropriate sorting template. I still see value in such documentation. If the template doc page is not the most appropriate place, then were is the appropriate place? It needs to be somewhere that a person who picks a category out of thin air (i.e., sees a somewhat relevant template and thinks "aha! I could use that" would be likely to see it, so they can quickly zero in on the most appropriate stub template to use in the situation. I can't think of a better place than the doc page, but I'm surely open to suggestions of a better place.

Now to the template itself... STRONG Keep because this is the only template that the Wikibooks Bartending WikiProject has to identify such articles here on Wikipedia. Most Wikipedians don't know (and some don't even care) that there is a fairly large and encompassing Wikibooks Bartending Guide over there. It has information that could be (and in some cases should be once sourced) moved here and could help fill in stubs here. There is also a lot of stubby information here that could be (or should be, especially if it falls into "WP:NOT a cookbook" territory). Without a dedicated bartending stub sorting, that would make locating such article extremely difficult. The guide is about bartending, not about cocktails and mixed drinks per se (though there is a large drink recipe collection--mostly dumped there via transwiki from en.wiki). The fact that there are so few articles tagged with {{bartending-stub}} is both a testament to the success of the tag in helping to reduce the large number of articles that were once tagged with that template, and also a testament to the lack of effort in locating new articles that need it. Jeremy's bot requests will certainly help us to locate new ones to get us going again.

Please do not delete this tag and sorting category. It is used, it works, and it is both unique and different from mixed drinks, alcohol, and absolutely unrelated to the occupations lists. If consensus feels that deleting such a useful template for multiple WikiProjects (WP:BAR, WP:MIX, WP:BEER, WP:WINE, WP:ALCOHOL, and WP:F&B) and two projects (en.wiki and en.books) is somehow in the best interest of both the encyclopedia and the users (who would suffer from stubs that can't be found by editors who would otherwise work to fix them), then of course feel free to delete it. I'd say that upmerging to {{mixed-drink-stub}} would be a better choice than occupations, though, since it was spun off of there in the first place. I still think that an article on bar tongs, garnishes, and legal responsibilities of bartenders in various countries belongs more in bartending than in mixed drinks, they definitely belong more in mixed drinks than they do in with dog walkers, firemen, and other occupations.

I should also point out that the stub and category did go through the appropriate vetting process (not that I remember the process' name any longer) and it was agreed that such a division in content was appropriate at that time. I am pretty sure that Grutness was involved in those conversations, and might even have !voted in favor of it. Then again, it could be brain fog from over 2 years passing between creation and use.

It would also have been nice to have been notified about this sooner, since I was one of the original (if not the original) creator of the template. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 06:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I should also apologize to Jeremy, because I thought I had gone through and deleted all the old WP:COCKTAILS-related templates. I thought that {{cocktail-stub}} was supposed to have been replaced by {{mixed-drink-stub}}, and that it was going to eventually be deleted. A cocktail is a sub-type of a mixed drink, but a mixed drink is not necessarily a cocktail. Thus, mixed-drink is the slightly broader term and was the preferred choice for stub sorting name. It also better aligned with the WikiProject name (well, the newly renamed back in 2007 name) that was going to take primary responsibility for improving those articles. Just as WikiProject Bartending would take primary responsibility for improving bartending-stubs. Removing the bartending-stub essentially eliminates that category for the WikiProject, which is most unhelpful. Anyway, if someone wants to delete an unneeded category and tempalte, it should be cocktail-stub, not bartending-stub. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 06:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about upmerging the {{bartending-stub}} template to both Cat:Mixed drink stubs and Cat:Occupation stubs? Pegship (talk) 06:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would not consider that an upmerge. I would consider moving mixed-drink-stub into bartending to be an upmerge. Merging bartending-stub into mixed-drink-stub would be a downmerge, since mixed drinks are an important part of bartending, but bartending is really so much more than mixed-drinks. Here is something I added to your talk page that everyone should probably read:

[Bartending] is neither about a generic occupation, nor about a particular mixed drink, but about the entire genre and (dare I say?) bartending "mystique". Can you imagine any Old West saloon without it's barkeep? Let alone, can you imagine any Old West town without a saloon? Closer to home, can you imagine any typical Friday or Saturday night in a city without its dozens of bars, taverns, pubs, and nightclubs? And what is inside all of those? Bartenders, barbacks, cocktail waitresses, back-of-house runners, hostesses, cooks, bouncers, disc jockeys, security guards, valets, beer, wine, spirits, non-alcoholic mixed drinks, cocktails, garnishes, glassware, bartending tools and equipments, point of sale systems, drink mixers, ice, and so much more. ALL of those fall within the bartending genre. To be accurate, all of the stubs related to what I just said could be rolled into bartending-stub, since it is the general topic that all the others are subsets of. It is an occupation, a location, a facility, a drink, a social phenomenon, and sometimes stain on society, but, for many, a fun one.

[This template] is used both here and by Wikibooks editors for the Bartending Guide there (which has a fluid, back and forth relationship with Wikipedia articles). The stub sorting template is highly useful to help us spot stubs here that might be better as part of the Guide, and also to see where we have information that can be excerpted back into Wikipedia (assuming we can located appropriate third-party sources). The bartending-stub is not exactly your usual stub sorting category/template, because of that close interaction between Wikibooks and Wikipedia. The choice of deleting that template will have adverse consequences both here and there. Please consider that, and the fact that there are around 25 articles in the category now.

Slightly rearranged to fit into this page's discussion Moving bartender-stubs into occupations would render the tag almost completely useless to the interested WikiProjects. Maybe some other WikiProject might become interested then, but I doubt it. If the purpose of these tags and categories is to identify stubs so that they can be expanded or merged, then they should be easily accessible to the people most likely to fix them. That would be the members of WP:BAR and WP:BARB. I know this is not a WikiProject template per se, but it is useful for several WikiProjects, and that greatly improves the chances that the articles will also be improved. That is better for the encyclopedia and its readers. I don't see how up/down merging would similarly help. I only see it making things more difficult.

I also understand now that this template may have been previously deleted and then recreated without adequate (if any) discussion. Since at least one of the key people involved in using this template (me) wasn't involved in the discussion, I am looking at this as an original deletion discussion without prejudice to any prior deletions or recreations. Since I was around for the original creation discussions, I remember that it was seen (after a little initial bit of a hard sell) as a useful category distinct from mixed-drink-stub (proposed at the same time as a replacement for cocktail-stub). Had I known about an earlier deletion discussion, I would have voiced these concerns then. Since all of the interested parties appear to be participating this time around, please let's look at this as a regular deletion discussion without an prejudices for procedures that might have been violated in between the original creation and now. Thanks! —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 09:07, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(after e.c.) I've replied to a lot of what Willscrlt has said at his talk page, but in a nutshell he's more or less right about the difference between stubs and Stub-Class, though there is more to it than that. Basically stubs are for editors across the entirety of Wikipedia; if a specific WikiProject wants to mark its articles, then assessment templates is a better means of doing so. Judgement by stub-sorters is not entirely to do with length, but is by necessity more arbitrary than the experts at a specific project would be able to be. Given that all stub templates are used in the same way, /doc pages are unnecessary - everything is at WP:STUB, and on those rare occasions where more needs to be said it is listed in the header of the relevant stub category, or (if it relates to editing the template's text) as a commented-out note in the template itself.

I still think that WP:BAR would be better off in the long run with an assessment template, so that it can mark all the articles relating to that project, and assess them in a way that that project deems best. A stub template will never give you that, since it will largely be used by stub-sorters who have no more than a general knowledge of the subject. However, if for some reason you'd prefer to keep the stub template instead, I will grudgingly accept that it could be kept, though as an upmerged form if it has fewer than 30 stubs (the articles using it can still be accessed via the template's "what links here" link, even if there is no specific category for them - and in any case, if you have 25 stubs, it shouldn't take much work to track down another five). I'd certainly support it being kept until such time as an assessment template can be made, if that is your option.

As to the vetting process, it appears from the archives as though the mixed-drinks-stub and cocktail-stub did go through such a process (with confused results which will hopefully be remedied shortly) -and I was a participant in one of those processes - but I can find no record of anything like that happening with bartending-stub. Grutness...wha? 09:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Those involved in this discussion may also like to comment on the discussion I've just mentioned, which is at Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion/Log/2009/May/30#.7B.7BCocktail-stub.7D.7D, above. Grutness...wha?'

Will said what I was trying to say but I did not properly word it... --Jeremy (blah blah) 09:23, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While the general idea of a stub template and category for bartending may have merit, I am a little concerned about the desired use for this template as essentially a tracking tool for various WikiProjects. There is long-standing consensus that WikiProjects can do almost whatever they must in order to properly track articles under their purview as long as they do not do this in the mainspace. Wikipedia WikiProjects should track categories via talk page banners and the Wikibooks Bartending WikiProject could also conceivably keep track of bartending stubs via a talk page template.

In other words, while I understand the value of tracking bartending stubs for WikiProjects on Wikipedia and sister projects, I have not seen a clear explanation of why a stub template, and not a talk page template, is needed to do that. So, with that in mind, I am neutral on the stub template itself but support deletion of the project-specific documentation page. If there is to be a stub template for bartending topics, it should be used in the same manner as all other stub templates. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 05:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.