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Well I've always created new stubs on the basis that if you create new articles they stand a much better chance of being expanded and containing some info then if they didn't exist. I agree with pretty much what you said Somey but I'd have to say that the majority of minor wikipedia editors and ips feel the prospect of creating an account and starting a new article daunting and are either afraid of it being deleted or don't feel confident enough to do it. People who've supported my stubs in the past have said that at least I start the stubs consistently and cleanly which could reasonably be expanded by anybody (many sporadic new articles by newbies are often even worse in needing cleanup/categories reference fixing etc), in fact a number of editors have actually thanked me for batches I've started as it makes it easier for them to work off and wouldn't have done it otherwise. I think probably at least a thousand of stubs I've created are now full length or half decent content articles. Some like Xinjiang Medical University are surprise expansion ones. The truth though is the we don't have the amount of editors or interest to expand them ALL. So in principal unless the articles is expanded then at this moment in time it has been a waste of time... I'd have to say though Malleus that with the expection of some of the obscure "third world" villages the vast majority of stubs I start have some information on the Internet which could be added to them. For instance Burmese villages like Gwebin and Shwenyaungbin I started increasingly have info on them beyond the xxx is a stub. These are the valuable sort of articles I want us to have on parts of the world never covered in a general encyclopedia before and was my intention with any sub stubs i started that i want them written eventually. Of course I'd rather start the articles with knowledge like this but in the past I've been so aware of the scope of missing topics that I've tried to get them onto wikipedia, jeopardizing quality. Its finding a balance I think between starting new articles which are actually useful and contain some sentences of factual information and developing articles to GA quality. You'll find that most of my new articles in the last year or two have been useful stubs or start class articles, although I did create a lot of village stubs a while back.
Of course from a neutral point, quality and content is the most important thing. Of course there are problems with paid editing with multiple editors editing at the same time and potential squabbling over who is owed what etc but i think the articles which are core and nobody is improving and which REALLY need improving then I don't see why the foundation couldn't raise a certian amount each year to pay accomplished editors in certain fields a small amount to get the job done.
I think the most important things on wikipedia are a] increasing its scope and venture into poorly or uncovered areas of knowledge, like agricultural industries in African countries etc and b]Developing articles to GA level which have been reviewed and have been assessed as approved articles. It always comes down to the quality vs quanity thing. I agree I want every article to be GA but I've always found it difficult to ignore the vast topics which are not even started. Given that I don't have tine to write them all and given that wikipedia is visited by millions of people its my way of trying to do something towards it, and hoping that somebody can add to it later, which they often have but more noticeably have not... I believe I've mostly started articles which an encyclopedia of wikipedia's scale "should" have but we need more editors to help expand... That's why opinions of me and my intentions are divided is that some see the idea of promoting new topics and their long term potential and others like yourself Somey which regard the stubs as useless and a waste of time and creating a maintenance problem...
This post has been edited by Dr. Blofeld:
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Jimbo causes Blofeld to quit
