Memory Alpha:Find or fix a stub

About → Policies and guidelines → Find or fix a stub

This page describes one of Memory Alpha's policies and guidelines.
Please read through the policy below to familiarize yourself with our common practices and rules.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page.

A stub on Memory Alpha is defined as a very short article of one paragraph or less. Generally, stub articles are short, vague sentences (or even a single sentence) that fail to cover all but the extreme basics of a subject.

Stubs can be useful as placeholders - if you are in the process of researching a topic or are writing a longer article for inclusion in the wiki, it can be a good idea to start with a short article. However, stubs are also sometimes left in the database, and thus are of very little use to those who read them.

• Before creating a stub article, you should ask yourself if this stub might be useful to anyone. Sometimes it is better to have no article at all than to have one that completely fails to describe even the basic facts about a subject.
• When creating a stub article, please add a stub message to show other contributors that this article needs to be expanded. This procedure is explained below.
• After creating a stub article, don't just leave the article in the database. Try to return after a while to expand the article if no one else did in the meantime.

Marking stub articles

If you create a stub, or find an unmarked stub, add one of the following boilerplate messages at the bottom of the article to encourage other users to destubify the article:

{{stub}}

This is a generic message for all stub articles. It will appear as:

This article is a stub. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-character}}

For stubs about specific characters, use this message template. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a character. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-location}}

For stub articles about locations, add this message. It appears as:

This article is a general location stub. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-planet}}

For stub articles about planets, this message can be used. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a planet. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-production}}

For stubs relating to production information (like the article of an actor who played a character on Star Trek), this message can be used. These may be tracked and fixed separately of the main article space POV stubs by users who are focusing on updating production information only. It will appear as:

This article is a stub relating to realworld information such as a performer, author, or other production material. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-region}}

For stub articles about a sector or region of space, use this message. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a sector or region. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-ship}}

For stubs about starships, this message can be used. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a starship. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-species}}

When creating a stub about a species or race, use this message template. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a species or race. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-system}}

For stubs about star systems, this message can be used. It will appear as:

This article is a stub about a star system. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

{{stub-technology}}

For stub articles about technology, add this message. It appears as:

This article is a stub about technology. You can help Memory Alpha by fixing it.

Finding and fixing stub articles

If you happen across a stub article, on a subject about which you are familiar, take a few minutes to flesh out the material. Provide more information and help to build the web further by adding even more wiki links to the text.

If you would like to find stub articles that need fixing, use the following pages to find lists of stub articles:

• Category:Memory Alpha stubs - for all stub articles
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Memory Alpha:Find or fix a stub
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub - for generic stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-character - for character article stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-location - for location article stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-planet - for planet article stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-production - for "behind-the scenes" stubs about production or actor information
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-region - for stubs about a region or sector
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-ship - for starship article stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-species - for species article stubs
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-system - for stubs about a star system
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Stub-technology - for technology article stubs
• Special:Shortpages - a page listing all existing articles by their size; ideal to find unmarked stub articles – of course, not all short articles on this list are stubs

Alternatively, the MediaWiki software can automatically mark short articles for you. In your preferences, set the Threshold for stub display to a number higher than zero (a recommended number is 200 bytes). By doing this, links to short articles will be colored differently, allowing you to spot them on all pages.

In all cases, please make sure to remove the stub message from any article that you fixed.

Articles that aren't stubs

Not all short articles are stub articles. Sometimes, there's only a little bit of information available on a subject and it only warrants two or three sentences. Short articles that cover their subject entirely should not be marked with a stub message.

Not all incomplete articles are stub articles, either. The stub message should not be used to mark any article that you think is incomplete. If an article consists of more than one paragraph but is still incomplete, you should instead list the article on Memory Alpha incomplete articles. Read Pages needing attention to learn how to do so.