Gswiki:Stub

Stubs are articles that have not yet received significant attention from GSWiki editors. To be classified as a stub, and not be considered entirely worthless, the article in question must at the very least describe the title or topic of the article.

What's not a stub

As stated above, an article that's empty isn't really a stub, it's an article that shouldn't exist. A stub should contain at least a sentence or two giving a brief description of the topic.

An article which is short isn't necessarily a stub. The article on Spirit Warding I is only one sentence (as of January 2006), but that sentence conveys all the information necessary to gain a complete understanding of the spell. Complete articles are never stubs.

What makes a good stub?

The purpose of stub articles is not only to provide a basic familiarity with a subject to the reader, but also to possibly act as a springboard for expansion. A lot of people don't like to do the tedious work of laying down the rudimentary facts about a subject that are so necessary in an article, so getting those details out of the way will provide the groundwork for someone else to come along and add more detailed information. Thus, a good stub doesn't just provide the bare facts on the subject, it also indicates where additional information might be added to flesh out the article.

Graduating a stub

If you work on expanding a stub article, once you're done, evaluate whether or not the article is still a stub. If you think the article now has no or little room for expansion, it's probably no longer a stub. Even if there is a lot of room for expansion, does the article provide new or useful information to anyone who would read it, including those with some basic familiarity of the subject? In either case, go ahead and remove the stub template.