Talk:Loaded sock

Lead section has extra information

@Guylaen: I have tagged this article for clean-up because the lead section has extra information about what a Loaded sock is that is not born out by the citations you have given. Also, with 7 paragraphs, the lead section of this article is also probably too long. A lead section should ideally be between 100 and 400 words, and in proportion to the overall size of the article. To me, it seems like there needs to be a section or two inserted somewhere after the first paragraph to indicate where the lead ends and where the article begins. See MOS:LEAD for purpose of the lead. It should provide an accessible overview to the whole article. Information in the lead should be in the body of the article too. See WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY

The first sentence defining what a Loaded sock is also appears to be inconsistent with the article Baton (law enforcement) which includes definitions for a cosh (weapon), blackjack (weapon), and sap (weapon), which appears to describe something different. Also, the term Beaner, as a weapon, does not redirect to this article, although I can see the analogy by comparing with beanball as "bean" is slang for head. Please provide reliable sources for including these extra terms, as they are not explained in the article. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not a lead section. This is a stub. Guylaen (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe Also, added sources which clearly state that cosh, blackjack, sap, etc., can be used to define a loaded sock.

Coshes and blackjacks are made of leather – but the "makeshift" version – are loaded socks.

It's like the difference between an Anti-tank mine and an Improvised explosive device – both of them are bombs that kill tanks. Guylaen (talk) 01:22, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Guylaen: In my assessment, this article has gone far beyond being a stub. A stub article is a very short article and gives a very basic description of a topic. It is perhaps one or two sentences long, often looks like a definition, and perhaps has three references. When I assessed this article it had more than 5,000 characters, and the article was divided into two sections of text, as well as three additional sections for references and other sources of information, as well as 13 references. The section before the first heading had 12 sentences spread over 7 paragraphs, only the first of which appeared to really be a lead section. Not only did the lead section have extra information, I also felt the first section was too long and needed to be divided into additional sections. Once the text of an article has a section that deal with a particular aspect of a topic it ceases being a stub, according to the assessment guidelines. Your expansion of the article might have tripled its overall size but you are still treating it as a stub, which it is not, and probably never was, even when you first created it. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, for a couple of years now, I have considered the assessment guidelines inadequate for most articles that should be considered stubs.

But I always leave it to other editors to remove the stub tag. Guylaen (talk) 22:25, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

You should also look at the timestamp when I wrote that message and compare it to the timestamps of when I made my edits. My attitude of its stubbieness did change in that time. Guylaen (talk) 22:26, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your additions to the article, especially the extra sources. However, the guidelines for stub length would suggest that once an article is expanded beyond about 400 or 500 words, in needs a lead section. It is probably better to do this earlier than later, and when you start dividing an article into multiple sections. Once a table of contents appears I don't perceive an article to be a stub any more, irrespective of its overall size. The sentence(s) above the table of contents are, by implication, the lead section, while those below it are the body of the article. The way this article is written, everything important about a Loaded sock is crammed into the beginning of the article, i.e. the implicit lead section. To my mind, the lead should give a summary of basic answers to the basic questions a reader might have, such as "What is a loaded sock?" - the answer, which is probably a good start for a lead, is essentially, - "A loaded sock is an improvised weapon made from a sock filled with hard objects. The details can then be dealt with in the rest of body of the article, below the table of contents. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 23:14, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

500 words is a stub no matter what to me. Doesn't matter how big the table of contents is, doesn't matter how many refs there are. If it's short, it's a stub. Guylaen (talk) 10:04, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

If the article has more than 4 paragraphs, each in is own section, it is no longer looking like a stub, and moving in to the area of being a Start class article. An article of under 250 words might still be short enough to still be considered a stub, but a short 500 word article is probably not. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:20, 4 February 2026 (UTC)