Seed/Definition

A seed is an article which is clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title, which generally means 3 to 10 short sentences. Note that a longer article may be a seed if the topic is complex enough; conversely, a short article on a topic which has a very narrow scope may not be a seed.

Another way to define a seed is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial internet search or a few minutes in a reference library. An article that can be improved by only a rather knowledgeable editor, or after significant research, may not be a seed.

Sizable articles which lack wikification or copy editing are generally not considered seeds. Note that small articles with little information may end up being nominated for deletion or be merged into another relevant article.

Once a seed has been properly expanded and becomes an article rather than just a seed, you should remove the seed tag from it. When writers begin a new article, they use the word seed to mean that it is still very short and that people can add a lot more useful information. Most seeds are only one paragraph or sometimes they are only a few lines. Seeds do not contain a complete description of a subject.

If you make or find a seed, add this special text to ask other users to make the article longer. The easy way to do this is to use the short-cut: [[Include(Seed)]]

Adapted from the Wikipedia guide on stubs: Wikipedia:Stub

For a list of seed pages you can improve on the Davis wiki, see Seed Pages List.

2005-12-05 11:26:13   The Wikipedia importance of identifying articles as stubs has to do with its goal of "authoritativeness". We've had quite a bit of debate on the subject as it applies to Davis wiki. However, I think a LIST of stub pages for people to work on would be far more useful than a tag on stub pages which is perhaps a visual eyesore. Also given dual nature of the wiki as a forum as well as an information source, it perhaps is not appropriate to say that a page is useless OR _too_ short. However, i agree that it would be good to maintain a "develop this page", much like the wanted pages. In short: stub tags=eyesore, not necessarily consistant with daviswiki model, but useful as a list. —JaimeRaba

2007-02-20 18:32:01   Stub vs Seed... Stub is a wikipedia-ish title, JamieRaba's comment above has stuck with me for a few days, and perhaps 'seed' is a more encouraging title and placeholder definition for shorter items. —HimySyed

2007-04-17 21:37:32   I like the new seed tag! It has a much more positive connotation than "stub" and the seedling picture is adorable. Win. —NumiaCairaguas

2007-11-14 18:13:34   I think a lot of things that get the {seed} tag thrown on them are "so short as to be useless." There's a difference between an article of some sort versus a blank page bearing only a name and location, which is seen on a lot of business "seed" pages. I suggest that those all get the {seed} tag replaced with the Apathy include, because it's clear that no real effort was made towards establishing a usable page. <.< —EdWins

• It takes me about five minutes with Google to flesh out the empty ones, or ten minutes if I find lots of info and can get the entry to a good size. If there was a page of businesses in Davis without entries rather than headers and a seed macro, I (and other people) could go through them easier. The people who create the empty entries mean well, I know... but if you don't have the few minutes to put into them, just make a note for those who do (or come back later, or do fewer in a sitting). Or just create a link to the non existent page somewhere so it show up on Wanted Pages, which is where many gnomes work from. — JabberWokky
  • (This reply is a seed. I'll finish it later.) — CarlMcCabe