Fragment/Definition

DNA can come in the form of a long chain of nucleotides, or in short segments which we call DNA Fragments. Some of these are essential concepts in genetics, such as Okazaki Fragments, and fragments generated by Restriction Enzymes which can be used in Genotyping. But here on the DNA Wiki we have another use of the term: a page that is small and needs to be extended!

Modeled off of the "stub" page concept of Wikipedia, a fragment is a page that is ten lines of text or less, and is too short to be a good entry. Here is how Wikipedia defines a stub:

A stub is an article that is too short to provide encyclopaedic coverage of the subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. To qualify as a stub it must at least define the meaning of the article's title. Often that means three to ten short sentences, but less text may be sufficient to qualify as a stub for articles on narrow topics, and complicated topics with more than ten sentences may still be stubs. However, in reality, many articles which are labeled as stubs are much longer than that. You can help Wikipedia by removing inappropriate stub notices.

Another way to define a stub is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial Web 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 stub.

To expand on that, given the breadth of subject area that we intent to cover in the DNA Wiki, a fragment page may also already be significant in length, but obviously in need of additional content. We could create a special fragment page (oligo?) for this kind of situation in the future.

If you find or create a page that is short or in need of extension, add [[Include(fragment)]] to the page and it will insert the contents of the Fragment page to your page when it is displayed. This automatically adds it to the Fragment Pages List page, where people looking to edit can find it.

It will display as this:

This entry is a fragment, a starting point for writing a full entry. You can help the DNA Wiki by extending it! Just click the "Edit" button.

If you are editing a fragment-tagged page and feel that it no longer qualifies as a fragment and could be considered a full-fledged article, then remove the above code from the page, and this will also remove it from the list of fragment pages. And pat yourself on the back for helping us complete entries on the wiki!