[Cz-editcouncil] {Disarmed} RE: Change of language about stubs

[Anthony Sebastian]

Sounds good to me.  I like the example of 'stubs' (aka, short articles) à la
Columbia Encyclopedia.  —Anthony.Sebastian

-----Original Message-----
From: cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org
[mailto:cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of Larry
Sanger
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 10:33 PM
To: 'The Citizendium Editorial Council'
Subject: [Cz-editcouncil] Change of language about stubs

All,

The following falls under the category "items that might, but probably
don't, need a vote."  If anyone would like the Editorial Council to
debate and vote on this, please say so (on this list).  Otherwise, I'll
just go ahead and make the change.  I'll give you until Tuesday
afternoon (UTC) to object, without which I'll make the change.

Essentially, this rewords the language about short articles ("stubs"),
still ruling out *very* short stubs, but now slightly encouraging
high-quality, longer (150-250 word) stubs.

See below for the details.

--Larry


Here's the text (from
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Policy_Outline#Stubs) I would replace:

While it's all right to create a few stub articles (i.e., very short
articles), particularly if you're committed to expanding them sometime
soon, we would prefer that you focus on a smaller number of longer
articles. It really does not do anyone good to have many very short
articles. Stubs contain almost no information, and therefore not the
information for which people might want to search; they "scratch the
itch" of red links, when we would like that itch more fully scratched
with a good article; they are a poor example to newer people, who follow
the example by writing short articles of their own; and they arguably
are a sign of vanity when used merely to add to the number of articles
you've started. 

Here's what I would replace it with:

You are welcome to contribute short entries, called "stubs," or articles
that are approximately 150-250 words in length.  (Note: articles under
50 words may be deleted.)  Stubs should be self-contained, include an
excellent [[CZ:Article_Mechanics#Definitions|definition or description]]
of the topic, and in other respects serve as a good albeit very general
overview of the topic.  In other words, it should be serviceable as an
entry in a traditional desktop reference such as the
''[http://www.bartleby.com/65/ Columbia Encyclopedia.]''

Some people believe that stubs actually encourage others to help "build
the web."  Certainly there are many people who are capable of writing
excellent shorter articles even when they are incapable of expanding
them in a credible way.  We don't wish to discourage the creation of
good content, and we bear in mind that we are still a very new project,
and we must begin somewhere.  So if you feel tempted to "turn a red link
blue" with a stub, feel free--just please do a good job, even if your
entry is indeed brief.

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