Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Lists of people

This section says that people have to be be notable within that category to deserve a place on a list of people such as List of Atheists. Then it goes on to say that anyone associated with a nationality can be included in such a list, whether their notabililty is associated with that category or not. I found this self-contradictory, and I've tagged it as such. Is this an exception that only applies to nationality, or does it also go for other categories? Could someone explain this to me? LoNC 17:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It's an exception. Why is it an exception? Because nobody other than statesmen are notable just for being citizens. It's sort of an admission that nationality is perhaps a trivial topic for a list, but that would have to be decided by AfD. Ham Pastrami (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

notable

As a suggestion, it may be best to include that removing the word "notable" from lists should be discussed on the talk page first to ensure consensus before the word is outright removed. In some cases, consensus amongst editors of the page have decided to include the word :notable" in the title. Yahel Guhan 05:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a severe problem in mandating that we don't use words like 'notable', 'famous', etc in these titles. I've been maintaining "List of notable software bugs" - which was recently renamed to "List of software bugs" per this guideline. But the resulting title is no longer descriptive of what's intended to be in that list.

We're not attempting to list all software bugs (but failing to mention the non-notable ones because WP:NOTE doesn't allow us to).

We are actually attempting to list only those bugs that caused human deaths or cost millions of dollars in damage or were really infamous for one reason or another.

Removing the word "notable" from the title leaves one feeling that this is an attempt to list every single software bug there has ever been - which is a list that will never be complete because of the constraints of Wikipedia's notability standards. This will certainly lead ill-informed editors to stick any old software bug into the list increasing the number of arguments we have and the amount of reverting we have to do. In this case "List of notable software bugs" is simply more descriptive of the intended content of the list - it is merely coincidence that WP:NOTE would not have allowed us to list non-notable bugs anyway. Similarly, "List of famous French persons" is more descriptive than "List of French persons" because we would not have attempted to make a list of all 200 million French people who have ever lived even if WP:NOTE allowed it.

I can't help but feel that this guideline is misguided. Sure it's a tautology to include "notable" or "famous" in the title because WP:NOTE would not have allowed it to be otherwise - but I bet that far less than 1% of our readers are familiar with WP:NOTE and may wonder why some specific thing is missing from this list who's title suggests that it's highly comprehensive. Adding "notable" or "famous" to the title results in a better description of the intended content of the list. SteveBaker (talk) 13:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I was the renamer of the software bugs list. The longstanding consensus is that the introduction section to the list is the best place to add any inclusion qualifiers like "notable" "famous", etc., as well as define exactly the editors' consensus on how inclusion/exclusion is determined for that particular list. WP users know they should read the intro., and assume "notable": even novice users learn this very quickly, in my experience. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Naming Convention

Should a list such as Succession of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States remain at that name or be moved to something like List of the Succession of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States. The second seems more awkward, but the policy seems rather absolute. Mbisanz (talk) 08:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Eh, guidelines are generally open to reasonable exception. Although, I think this title might be better in any case: Succession of Episcopal Church Bishops (U.S.). -- Ned Scott (talk) 09:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

If you were to rename it as a list, I would suggest List of Episcopalian Bishops (U.S.). There's no need to call it both a list and a "succession of", and there's really no reason to keep spelling out the church. See for example, List of English monarchs. Rather than List of Monarchs of England (redirect). Ham Pastrami (talk) 17:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Index lists - RfC

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Index Lists, a complex issue which I've tried to summarize. It concerns unsourced pages in mainspace like List of timelines, List of basic mathematics topics, and List of film topics. Its scope is currently a few hundred pages, and potentially a few thousand pages. Feedback would be appreciated. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

List contents

Based on a conversation at WP:N, several editors, myself included, believe that the list contents section of this guideline need to be improved to more accurately capture WP practice around lists. Specifically, the guideline needs to recognize that there are some lists (like List of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, List of passengers on the Mayflower or List of passengers onboard RMS Titanic) that should not be strictly limited to notable entires only, while it is ok if there are others (like List of social networking websites, List of nu metal bands, List of bicycle manufacturing companies, or List of United States companies) that, to prevent listspam and becasue of WP:NOT#DIR, that are fairly strictly limited to entries where a Wikipedia article exists (which is close to the current text here). UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think these could be defined as "authoritative" lists. They come from a single definitive source (such as a law enforcement agency, or a ship manifest) that is for all practical purposes, fixed and irrefutable -- no one can reasonably deny that a person doesn't belong to those lists, nor add other people to the list at will. The content of the list is finite and complete. For other lists, whose entries must be evaluated individually, inclusion is determined by notability. Subjects can overlap but the disposition of a list is not affected; for example, the List of Pokemon is an authoritative list that includes all Pokemon, but a List of cartoon characters is a non-authoritative list that would only contain notable Pokemon (Pikachu has its own article; most others do not). Ham Pastrami (talk) 18:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Racist and or POV pushing lists

I was surprised to come across List of Russians and amazed at the total lack of neutrality in respect to the articles purpose and choice of total inclusion of any one ever part of or subjugated by any Russian anywhere at any time. It seems to me that this is what categories are for and not an indiscriminate collection of arbitrarily decided on names. Perhaps its time to rethink Lists of Elbonians altogether.Awotter (talk) 10:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

List article naming

Should there be a preference for what list articles are called? For example the guideline mentions sortable lists which in the wild are usually called comparisons. But a comparison is just a type of list -- I don't know of any good examples where you would really want two distinct articles (list of... and comparison of...). So if all these types of lists boil down to being lists, should it be preferred that the articles all be named as "List of..."? Ham Pastrami (talk) 08:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Self Reference

The concept of Selection Criteria seems to violate WP:ASR. I recently encountered this issue on List of fictional companies. Perhaps some comments about the relationship between Selection Criteria and WP:ASR should be added to the article? Though I'm not quite sure how it should be addressed. -Verdatum (talk) 15:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Selection criteria rarely involves the word "Wikipedia" or links to articles outside the main namespace. And they probably never should. Precisely which statements do you consider to be in conflict and what was the issue that you encountered? Ham Pastrami (talk) 16:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...good point, nevermind. "Neutral self-references are acceptable". -Verdatum (talk) 16:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Removal of long-standing formulation

Why is this formulation being deleted? based on definitions made by reputable sources. This is particularly important in the case of difficult or contentious topics. Beware of those cases in which the definitions themselves are disputed. This has been in the guideline Since September last year. Please discuss. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see any discussion about its addition. I checked a bunch of lists and I couldn't find any with sourced criteria. Guidelines (and policies) are descriptive, not proscriptive. Can anyone show that this is the standard followed by lists on Wikipedia? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Your (jossi's) point is not without merit, but the language that you put back is too demanding and apperars to require sources for definitions that do not need them, such as List of counties of Califoria or List of winners of the Kentucky Derby. Some lists need an opening section that makes clear what the creator intended to include. Some need explicit criteria and may need a sourced definition that justifies the criteria presented. I suggest that you propse alternate language here and ask for comment.--Hjal (talk) 05:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

In order to prevent misunderstandings in either direction by readers, I've adapted a line from WP:CITE, and added the text In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed, referenced definitions from reliable sources on the subject should be used.[1] Is that satisfactory to all of you? --erachima talk 07:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

How many lists have sourced definitions? I haven't seen any. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

@erachima: That is a good distinction and makes it much clearer. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I added a "see also" link:

• {{see also|Wikipedia:Lists#Lead sections in stand-alone lists}}

See also: Wikipedia:Lists § Lead sections in stand-alone lists

Here is part of that section:

Stand-alone lists should always include a lead section just as other articles do. Even when the meaning of a list's title seems obvious, a lead section should be provided which briefly and clearly describes what the list is about. In other words, it should present the inclusion criteria items must meet in order to qualify to be added to the list. For example:

* If the meaning of the list's title seems obvious, e.g. List of dog breeds, the article may open with a simple statement using wikilinks, e.g. "This is a list of dog breeds." (The inclusion criteria is that an item must be the name of a dog breed in order to be added to the list).

* If the list's title does not seem obvious, e.g. List of scholastic philosophers, the lead section should clarify the meaning of the title, e.g. "This is a list of philosophers working in the Christian tradition in Western Europe during the medieval period. See also scholasticism."

Non-obvious characteristics of a list, for instance regarding the list's structure, should also be explained in its lead section.

It helps clarify how to deal with definitions and membership criteria. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good forumlation, and reflect actual usage. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions needs some work

Since there are plenty of aptly-named lists that don't follow the "List of ___" format, I think it's necessary to reword the policy a little bit to reflect this. Lists such as discographies and filmographies are the obvious exceptions to the "List of" rule. But I could see other potential names, such as "Catalog of", "Time line of", and the above-mentioned "succession of". Basically, if you think of words that are specific types of lists (in so far as a "discography" is a list of musical releases, a "time line" is a chronological list of events, etc), shouldn't all of these be allowable in certain contexts? Shouldn't the defining characteristic be that the title uses a list-type-word most appropriate to the topic at hand, as long as a list-type-word is in fact used? Drewcifer (talk) 06:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Please see:

Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Formats of articles that are lists --Timeshifter (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

A similar question arises when dealing with set index articles. The guideline at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#set index articles says, "Set index articles should follow the style described in Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)", but two of the three examples it uses (Dodge Charger and USS Enterprise) do not follow the "List of ____" naming schema. Nor, in my view, should they — there's no benefit in changing Dodge Charger to List of automobiles named Dodge Charger or List of Dodge Charger variants. Would it be OK to add a line to the "Naming conventions" section indicating that set index articles do not need to be titled "List of _____"? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of any comment on this, I've taken the liberty of adding a bit about set index articles to the relevant section, on the principle that qui tacet consentit. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Clarification of List by Style / Article by content

Looking for some guidance on a series of pages starting with 1936 NFL Draft. By style it's certainly a list and a few similar NFL draft pages are FL. Naming conventions aside and obviously not named List of NFL Players Drafted in 1936, Is this (or others) article/list capable of GAN or must it just sit and await peer review with the hopes of someday being an FLC? Slysplace ^{talk ♫} 18:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Chronological ordering

Now it says: Chronological lists, including all timelines and lists of works, should always be in earliest-to-latest chronological order. Special cases which specifically require frequent daily additions, such as Recent deaths, may use reverse chronological order for temporary convenience, although these articles should revert to non-reverse order when the article has stabilized, such as Deaths in 2003.. I was in a edit war recently about List of civilian nuclear accidents, as I felt this list makes more sense reversed, as a 50'ies nuclear accident is by far not so relevant as a recent one. I'm nor sure how to apply the above quoted rationale on lists spanning decades? From history straight into every day reality? -- Eiland (talk) 16:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I took out the "always." I would get a third opinion on the specific atrticle, and suggest thinking about putting that list into a sortable table; that way, it is easy to switch from oldest at the top to newest at the top. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

as a 50'ies nuclear accident is by far not so relevant as a recent one - on what grounds? We're not a news site - the main reason for chronological ordering is so that events can be shown in their historical context, much as a timeline is. Your assertion is essentially a pro-recentism bias. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

A sortable table would help a lot, and would look great too, if done right. See Help:Table#Sorting and Help:Sorting. It would be essential, I believe, to only have a 2-column table with the date, location, and summary in the left column. The prose would be in the right column. A width limitation would be placed in the wikicode at the top of the left column. See Help:Table#Width, height. The right column would extend all the way to the right side of the screen. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

User: Lucian Sunday has just changed it to read frequent daily, weekly or monthly additions - should this not have been discussed first? --Jameboy (talk) 19:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not see a problem with extending the exemption to weekly and monthly articles. Is there one? Lucian Sunday (talk) 21:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Lists which require daily updates are particularly unstable. Lists which require weekly, and especially monthly additions, are not, and as Girolamo Savonarola says above, could be biassed. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 22:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe the requirement to keep articles under a certain length was due to the (initial/current??) limitations of the Wikimedia software. Certain lists, unlike Deaths in 2003, are perpetually unstable whether on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Adding to the bottom of an ever longer list is all well and good but at some stage there will be a requirement to hive off sections of the article. The stable element (ie the oldest sections) will be hived off. This is not Pro-recentism, simply a practical methology. Lucian Sunday (talk) 23:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think that the onus lies on the proposer of such a change to justify it, rather than the other way about. But as mentioned earlier in this thread, we are not a news service. We shouldn't assume that our readers are only interested in the most recent occurrence of a listed event, or when they do want the most recent occurrence, that they aren't capable of scrolling down to the bottom to find the bit they're after. You never know, if they have to scroll down a bit, they might find something interesting in the middle as well... And as also mentioned above, if the reader is likely to want to choose the order in which they read the list, it can usually be made sortable. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

When an edit is made, other editors have these options: accept the edit, change the edit, or revert

I think we all need a reminder of what the process actually is. Wiki's primary purpose is as an encyclopedia...but if the Main Page section In the news is not a news service I dont know what is. I think that the fact that the main page every day has a link to Portal:Current events shows that while it is not assumed that the reader is only interested in the most recent occurrence, it does show that most recent events are more often read and more often edited. Lucian Sunday (talk) 23:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll give you that the "In the news" section is effectively a news service :-) but not sure that your conclusion follows. But I still don't see any reason for ordering a chronological list in reverse order, if it's only being changed as infrequently as monthly. Make it sortable, then the reader can read it how they want. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The page that prompted this was Premier League Player of the Month which I dont think can be sorted as such without alot of work. I still think there are problems that will only become apparent in the (far) future which should be nipped in the bud while the workload is less but there are other objections to reordering; so now this is a moot point. Lucian Sunday (talk) 09:04, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd disagree with the idea that a regular, scheduled monthly addition of a line is somehow so unstable as to merit a disregard for the general conventions for chronological lists. If someone cannot be bothered to re-edit, that's fine (this is wiki afterall, and there is no deadline), but the idea isn't to have perpetual reverse-chronologies. Even the "Deaths in..." articles are intended to ultimately be chronologically ordered from start to finish (although sometimes we get lazy about doing the grunt work). Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I bring Mr Gay UK to the partcipant's notice; the order there is reverse chronology. Ironically the most notable winner, a Cannibal, is the first/last on the list. My own personal view is that to reverse the list gives WP:UNDUE weight to Anti-gay POV pushers. Lucian Sunday (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions for lists

Resolved

 – Just a pointer to another discussion.

A discussion has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Naming conventions for lists regarding the titles of lists. It is there so there isn't two threads here and at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (long lists). Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 21:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed move and merge

Resolved

 – Just a pointer to another discussion; merge proposal discussions are centralized at target not source.

I propose moving Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists), WP:NCLL, to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (lists), WP:NCL, and merging in the naming-related material from WP:SAL, since that is a style guideline. There is already a section at WP:NCLL on lists in general, so that is where this material would go. WP:NCLL and its longer name would redirect to the new name. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"Selection criteria"

Not fully sure how to word this as I agree with the way this is already written. But (There is always a "but") after having been in "discussions" with an Editor about deletions from a list and, after taking the discussion to a neutral discussion with mostly Mods, it seems that the consensus is that in order to be included on any list there need only be a Wikipedia page existing for the entry. Currently - as it is worded now - it says:

Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia, but this is not required if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. The one exception is for list articles that are created explicitly because the listed items do not warrant independent articles: an example of this is List of minor characters in Dilbert. Don't use a list as a "creation guide" containing a large number of redlinked unwritten articles; instead consider listing them in the appropriate section of Wikipedia:Requested articles or in the appropriate Wikiproject.

However if Editors and Mods (Admins) do not use the full text I would suggest simply removing everything after the line "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia". Soundvisions1 (talk) 19:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I have read your comment several times, and I don't understand what you are asking for, and why. Could you explain further? Are you asking that the paragraph in italics be completely removed from Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lead and selection criteria? --Timeshifter (talk) 23:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• No, I am asking: If Editors and Admins only use the first part - "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" - when removing items from lists why keep the rest? I have cited "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia, but this is not required if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future" in the past only to have items removed. In one specific case I stated that I would create articles for some of the items but the items were still removed because "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia". When I brought the topic at ANi one Admin quoted the full text, as if it was in support of how I am reading it. However as the discussion went on it was only "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" that was repeated, and that if a list entry did not have "its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" it was to be removed. The concept with this is that an article in Wikipedia = Notability. I have been unable to find any direct policy that states this. Even so it makes it very hard to send people to guidlines that are not really used. Just because I agree with this guideline the consensus at the ANi was that the full text does not matter, only that "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia". So because of that I was proposing that be the full text. Soundvisions1 (talk) 02:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think most of the current paragraph should stay. (full disclosure: I wrote most of it in multiple edits over the last months). The reason for the "this is not required if" carveout is to make possible complete lists: say that List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame happened to have one redlink; deleting that one entry from the list makes no sense, as most would agree it is only a matter of time until that article is written. (and even for that case, I started the essay Write the Article First, encouraging editors to create the article before updating the list). The reason for the "Don't use a list as a creation guide" sentence is that that used to be the practice in the early days of WP, and we need to make poeple aware that the practice has changed. The one sentence that I agree should go is "The one exception is " sentence; I am now sorry I wrote it, and I got reverted both when I tried to remove it, and when I tried to modify it. Do we now have consensus that this one sentence should go?UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned I actually like the way it is currently written however the issue is that only "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" is being used, and only "selectively" at that. I am going to sort of repost part of what I said below again, but here, to maintain the flow of this section - When questioned about removing entries on lists such as 11th Academy Awards, Academy Award for Documentary Feature, List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees and Academy Award for Best Short Film - Color the rationale was that these types of lists are obvious and therefor don't really need to follow a guideline such as this. I disagree with the "selective" logic because, currently, there is only this "one size fits all" guideline and it makes no distinction between one type of list or another. (other than "The one exception is..." line) I agree with this: Notability = Wikipedia article. I disagree with this: Wikipedia article = Notability. If the parent article sets up the notability of the "subject" than a spin off list should inherit that plus refine the lists specific inclusion guidlines. A list of "Asian Academy Award winners" that is spun of from an article on the Academy Awards should contain a list of Asian actors who have won an Academy Award and not exclude an actor who won because they do not have their "own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia". A list that contains baseball players should exclude any entry that does not have "its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia", however, if the list's inclusion criteria were refined to state it was a List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame than it should not be required that each entry have it's own article. I think it is also imperative that any spin off article that takes the form of a list include a link back to the article from which is has been spun. There is a huge difference between People with the surname Gill and List of Primetime Emmy Award winners. In these cases I would support the concept of "Notability for people with the surname of Gill = non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" but I would not support it for a list of prime time Emmy Award winners. The question is how to reword these guidlines to reflect the many variations of lists. Perhaps a footnote about "spin off article/lists" verses "stand alone article/lists" and use "people with the name of..." vs "People who won..." as the example? Soundvisions1 (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe removing the "one exception" clause would meet with consensus across Wikipedia. This was the compromise made for gobs of articles related to works of fiction. Looking at the discussions in WP:FICT, the recent Notability RFC, and at least one arbcom case (I'm too lazy to track down the links), enforcing such a requirement has been proposed before, there appears to be no clear concensus to do so. There is a struggle between this section, Notability is Not Content, and SALs that are, in fact, WP:SPINOUT lists from a parent topic. I personally think that the WP:GNG is an excellent choice of selection criteria for lots of SALs, (I previously attempted to enforce it on the host of List of fictional stores/tv stations/companies/etc articles). However I don't think it should be the only possible selection criteria. I think that criteria can be most easily worked out on a per-article basis, and therefore, leaving the overall guideline a bit weak is a reasonable idea. -Verdatum (talk) 17:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Template for List Of talk pages

Notability as the inclusion criteria for items in stand-alone list is appropriate, but often requires explaining to editors. These explanations are repeated in List Of articles all over Wikipedia. Can we put together a template briefly explaining the inclusion criteria and linking to WP:SAL and tag the talk page of every List Of article with it? Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• That happens with everything - we have Policies and Guidelines and then subject specific guidelines that refer back to other guidelines. The slight variation with lists however is that every list is allowed to actually set it's own inclusion criteria. Unless I am missing what you are asking, there would be no way to combine every single list specific inclusion criteria into a "one size fits all" set of guidlines. Soundvisions1 (talk) 01:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

While each list obviously lists different things, every list has the same inclusion restriction as outlined in WP:SAL: "Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia, but this is not required if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. The one exception is for list articles that are created explicitly because the listed items do not warrant independent article". I would like to see that restriction (or some rewording thereof), with a link to this guideline, in a template that can be added to the top of list article talk pages. It would save on explaning it to editors over and over. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:04, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

As you can see I am asking about that already. But that aside for a moment there is already a template that can be used on talk pages. It is not that hard to modify it with list specific guidelines. {{talkheader}} is what you can base it off of. But, to touch on my issue above, some lists may not have entries that have their "own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia" and that, to me, is an "failing" of the wording of the criteria and how it is worded. On the one hand, as I have mentioned, many Editors only use the first part. But when questioned about removing entries on lists such as 11th Academy Awards, Academy Award for Documentary Feature, List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees and Academy Award for Best Short Film - Color the rationale is that these types of lists are obvious and therefor don't really need to follow a guideline such as this. I disagree because currently there is only this "one size fits all" guideline and it makes no distinction between one type of list or another. The above lists are perfect examples of "Wikipedia article does not equal notability" even though the underlying concept with the criteria in question is that it does. To me there is a certain "inherited" notability as far as spin off lists go. If the parent article sets up the notability of the "subject" than a spin off list should inherit that plus refine the lists specific inclusion guidlines. Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Your issue is separate to mine. This talk section is not for discussion of whether the current form of WP:SAL is good. I'd like to hear other people's opinions on a talk page template to notify list article editors of the requirements of WP:SAL, which is the current guideline for list articles and which many editors are unaware of. Ryan Paddy (talk) 03:45, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you missed it - {{talkheader}} is what you want. Just modify it is all you need to do to reflect these guidlines.

I am adding a sample below in case you did not want to look at the template. It is "automated" via the "SUBJECTPAGENAME" and "SUBJECTSPACE" so wherever you place it it will automatically show the articles name/talk page.
Sample:

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists/Archive 2 page.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Article policies Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists Whatever else you need - ie - links to Parent article the list is spun off from, list specific guidlines, etc

Soundvisions1 (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Using the generic template {{talkheader}} would require that the explanation of WP:SAL would have to be copied in every time, correct? That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is the creation of a new template that already has the explanation of WP:SAL built in, so that the template can be changed in one place to effect the explanation that appears on all the stand-alone list talk pages. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

← Just to verify what you are asking. You want to create talk page tag such as the sample I gave above correct? If so than you take the {{talkheader}} template (Template:Talkheader) and create whatever you want. I set it up for you - just edit it with what you want. User:Ryan Paddy/SAL temp/. Soundvisions1 (talk) 01:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I wasn't imagining a tag that looked like the standard talk page tag, or used it. I was imagining a separate, smaller tag specifically for stand-alone list talk pages. A tag that would go on every stand-alone list talk page, not just linking to the guideline but explaining in brief the fact that items in the list are required to be notable. There could perhaps be a variant message for "minor character"-style lists, for which the notability requirement is lessoned. I should perhaps mention that I'm not looking for technical help - I'm a programmer and can put a template together if necessary. I'm asking for feedback on whether such a template is a good idea. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

"Notable", second thread

An editor just removed this and I restored it.

• Because of this, "notable" is assumed, and that word (or similar subjective words such as "famous," "noted," "prominent," etc.) should not be included in the title of a list article. Similarly, do not use a title like: Xs nor list of all Xs.

Text like this has been in the guideline for at least two years. It was discussed over a year ago on this page #notable. If folks want to remove it we should discuss it first.   Will Beback  talk  00:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Look at the history. It was added. Aug 27, 2008 by United Statesian. That's less than a year. 5 months and a few days to be exact. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 00:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Going back as far as 2003 it said:

• Do not use a title like: Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, nor list of all Xs.[2]

The newer text is just a better statement of the same thing that's been in here since the guideline was created over five years ago. If you want to change it back to what was there before, that's one thing. But not to delete it outright. Further, it was discussed in the thread linked above.   Will Beback  talk  00:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

If we go by the discussion linked above, there's obvious consensus against disallowing "notable" in the title of lists. The fact is Joe Blow thinks he and his mom and dad should be listed on List of people from Mississippi just because he and them are from there. Some people don't understand it's for notable people only. Trust me, I remove enough of these kinds of GF edits in lists all of the time. I moved it to List of notable people from Mississippi. Got reverted and referred to WP:SAL. So when I got to looking into it, I saw "no notable in title" was added 5 months ago, with obvious consensus against such addition. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 00:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

See below: the ban on "notable" in list titles has been there for five years. the only change was in the wording.   Will Beback  talk  00:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

[E/C] The change that Allstarecho is complaining about took this text:

• The name or title of the list should simply be List of _ _ (for example list of Xs). Do not use a title like: Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of notable Xs, nor list of all Xs. If (as is often the case), the list has multiple columns and so is in table form, the name or title List of _ _ is still preferrable to Table of _ _ or Comparison of _ _.

and modified it to this:

• The name or title of the list should simply be List of _ _ (for example list of Xs). Many lists are not intended to contain every possible member (e.g. List of people from the Isle of Wight obviously does not include all people from the island). Instead, inclusion on the list should be determined by the criteria above. Because of this, "notable" is assumed, and that word (or similar, such as "famous," "noted," "prominent," etc.) should not be included in the title of a list article. Similarly, do not use a title like: Xs nor list of all Xs. If (as is often the case), the list has multiple columns and so is in table form, the name or title List of _ _ is still preferrable to Table of _ _ or Comparison of _ _.

Does anyone think the previous version was better? If not I'll restore the newer version. I don't see a significant change in meaning but it is clearer, in my opinion.   Will Beback  talk 

Regardless, I am going to open an RFC on this because I honestly think it's most ridiculous to say you can't put the word "notable" or "famous" in a title. Thanks though for your thoughts here. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 00:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That's fine, but let's restore it until the RfC agrees on a new version.   Will Beback  talk  01:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The titles of list articles shouldn't say "list of notable/whatever X", because that's a universal requirement to be on such lists so it's redundant. The current text in this guideline is fine. However, it is true that many lists of this type are constantly inundated by editors adding items that aren't notable, because 1) those editors don't know/agree the items need to be notable, and 2) those editors don't know what "notable" means on Wikipedia. As I suggested in the section above, I think putting a template on every single list talk page briefly explaining the notability requirement would help. However, we absolutely shouldn't change the titles of the public-facing article pages just to inform errant editors. Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Getting to the core of the issue (rather than when or if a change occurred), I agree with Ryan Paddy. "Notable" is implicit in every list title.   Will Beback  talk  21:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It's obviously not implicit. If it were, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, nor would I be removing Joe Blow and his mom from every "List of people" I come across. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 22:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

We don't change names just to accomodate editors. But do you really think they'd stop adding their names if "notable" were in the title? A large number of articles on settlements have a section titled "Notable residents" or "Notable natives and residents" and most school articles have "Notable alumni" lists. Despite having "notable" right there, folks still add non-notable individuals. Partly that may be because their view of who is notable is different from the agreed-upon Wikipedia definition. I usually don't delete those if some legitimate claim to notability is there, even if we don't have an article on them. In some lists editors have had to enforce strict "no red links" policies to keep out spurious entries (you'd be amazed how many people get added as "porn stars" to alumni lists). I don't see how changing this guideline would help the situation. If we did decide to use "notable", then it'd have to go into most list names (excepting comprehensive lists). That's be very disruptive and add extra verbaige to article titles without any real benefit, IMO.   Will Beback  talk  22:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

We're approaching this issue backwards. The problem that Allstarecho is confronting is that editors often add non-notable subjects to lists. The question is, how do we stop this? Putting "notable" in the titles isn't only ugly, it also won't stop people adding non-notable subjects. So what will work? That's the real question. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should have a box something like this on all the list article talk pages.

I think that's much more likely to help with the issue of people adding non-notable subjects to lists than adding "notable" to all the list article titles. Ryan Paddy (talk) 01:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Works for me but I'm sure others will say no; banner-creep and all. It'll only be effective if it's on the main list page and not on the talk page. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 01:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no way I'd want it on the article itself, that'd be just as bad as having "notable" in all the titles. It would still have some impact on the talk pages. Having some impact is all that can be hoped for - there is no perfect solution and policing will always be needed. Ryan Paddy (talk) 02:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Info box for stand-alone list talk pages

There's an ongoing issue of warning editors about what is appropriate to add to a stand-alone list. I've made a template for adding to talk pages of list articles that are having repeated issues with people adding subjects that don't meet WP:SAL:

While there isn't any perfect solution to this problem, having this warning visible may somewhat reduce the number of problem edits. Ryan Paddy (talk) 03:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a great talk page infobox. While the point above about talk page boxes having imperfect impact on editors is a good one, that is no reason not to use this on talk pages. Thanks, RP. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

That looks good to me. If it cuts down unawarranted additions by even a few percent it'll help.   Will Beback  talk  19:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Total waste of time if it goes on the talk page and not the actual list page. It should be at the top of the list page. Lists aren't articles and it's common practice to have banners on lists and category pages; at least I have seen many. I'm sure none of you have though... - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 06:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This banner is aimed at influencing editor behaviour. Such banners belong on talk pages. Banners in the mainspace are to highlight issues with the current content, and they are removed when the problems are resolved. That wouldn't work for this, it could never be removed because new uninformed editors come along all the time. Can you give an example of a banner that is appropriate permanently on a mainspace list page? Ryan Paddy (talk) 09:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Another option, though much more time consuming, is to add hidden comments to every section of a list. An example. These notices may have had an affect.   Will Beback  talk  19:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I've worked on a list for some time that has hidden comments. The still list gets a lot of poor additions, but some may be deterred. These approaches are probably best used in combination. Ryan Paddy (talk) 19:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to advise against short lists

A discussion has been brewing at the talk page of the featured list criteria, and it is been agreed on that creating short lists—roughly, those less than ten items, is unnecessary, and such lists should be merged into their main articles (if possible). For example, is it actually useful to have lists such as List of Minnesota Wild head coaches? I (and those who support my position at aforementioned discussion page) propose that lists shorter than a decided-upon length be merged into their main article. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. But good luck getting the sport article writers to follow that advice. In my experience they're more concerned with creating a consistent structure of articles than ensuring that individual articles have merit. That list of head coaches doubtless exists because "every other professional ice hockey team has one". Likewise All Blacks was renamed to New Zealand national rugby union team because that's the naming convention for all the other national rugby teams. Try to prune their mighty ediface of symmetry at your peril! Ryan Paddy (talk) 04:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Trust me, I know. Thanks for the heads up on sports projects' opposition, I may ask for their input. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I like this proposal, but I would tweak it to add "without the possibility of expansion." A short list created as a starting point for a longer list, ideally if the {{expand}} template is added, should be ok. UnitedStatesian (talk) 12:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

What if the list is very detailed? For instance, check out Mick Thomson#Equipment. It's a short list and not much possibility of expansion, but it's got a lot of extra detailed information complementing it that's not directly related to the article's subject, so I don't think it belongs in the article and should be split into a separate list. Am I right about this? -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 18:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, there will always be exceptions. A huge category of these would be anime episode and chapter lists. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree this policy or guideline that would delete lists merely due to their size, as this contradicts Wikipedia's featured topic criteria 3 (c) Whereby if a list can be included in a featured topic, even with "their limited subject matter" - less than ten items. This would result in all good and featured topics that must include lists with "limited subject matter" be demoted. This must be properly addressed before this proposal goes ahead. Thanks! Alex Douglas (talk) 09:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

But are such lists useful? If the information can be contained in one article without breaching the size guidelines, why would it be necessary to split off a list? It must surely be easier for a reader to find the information in one place. --JD554 (talk) 06:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Alex, I understand what you are saying, but in the end, what's more important? Having bronze stars to show off on your user page or making the encyclopedia better for the readers? Of all our featured and good content, the topics are most oriented toward editors; most readers don't know that such things exist. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to clearly warn against 'lists of unencyclopedic entries'

I think that we should make clear that the contents of lists should in most cases themselves be encyclopedic. For example, it might be sensible to have a List of sovereign states, but it is not really Wikipedic to have a "list of words in the dictionary" or "list of how-to guides" because the individual items in these lists are inherently non-encyclopedic and are the subject of other Wikis. I suggest adding the following wording to Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Appropriate topics for lists, immediately after "The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination. To keep the system of lists useful, we must limit the number of lists."

"The content of stand-alone lists should be encyclopedic. It is best to avoid lists of entries that are themselves things Wikipedia is not, such as dictionary words or how-to guides. In other words, entries in stand-alone lists should themselves be a subject on which it would be appropriate to write a Wikipedia article."

Any opinions on this? I'd be happy to alter the wording, but I think something along these lines in this guideline would be helpful. Locke9k (talk) 19:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the appropriate place for this kind of clarification is the end of that section, not the beginning. There is already a paragraph at the end of the section to the same effect:

Some Wikipedians feel that some topics are unsuitable by virtue of the nature of the topic. Following the policy spelled out in What Wikipedia is not, they feel that some topics are trivial, non-encyclopedic, or not related to human knowledge. If you create a list like the "list of shades of colors of apple sauce", be prepared to explain why you feel this list contributes to the state of human knowledge.

It sounds like you're essentially saying we should make that wording stronger. Which I'm inclined to agree with. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Bad idea so far. This would be waaay more restrictive than you're probably intending. For instance, it would force us to delete television episode and character lists, since the individual episode and character articles typically do not pass WP:N. We'd have to delete entries from filmographies or bibliographies if the any of the films or books were not especially notable. We'd have to toss a huge number of featured lists: lists of tallest buildings (few are individually notable); List of Meerkat Manor meerkats; Amateur radio frequency bands in India; the aforementioned episode and character lists; List of English words containing Q not followed by U; Timeline of Mary Wollstonecraft and other "timeline" articles; Puerto Ricans Missing in Action in the Korean War; Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc; List of snow events in Florida; state symbols articles; List of Connecticut tornadoes; Extreme points of Bulgaria; List of solar eclipses in the 21st century; List of Polish flags; Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium); etc. Those are just the FLs; there are tons more that we'd be foolish to delete.

The "encyclopedicity" of a list is dependent on its topic, not necessarily on the importance of any of its individual entries. If there's a "magic bullet" for getting rid of crap lists, this proposal isn't it. Plus it would probably lend itself to wikilawyering in favor of lists we shouldn't have that nonetheless contain nothing but "notable" entries.

The rules that actually work on Wikipedia are ones that are based on the principles of what we do and why. Rules that don't emerge from a clear and well-accepted underlying principle have a pretty dismal track record on Wikipedia, just so you know. And using words like "unencyclopedic" in policy is a recipe for conflict.--Father Goose (talk) 00:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think there are a couple of separate issues here. One is whether lists should only contain subjects that warrant their own article (because they are notable). The other is whether lists should contain subjects that are what Wikipedia is not. I think the second issue is what Locke9k was meaning to refer to, not notability. If I'm right, then the only list you mention that is relevant is perhaps List_of_English_words_containing_Q_not_followed_by_U. Which I have to admit, I'm quite mystified by. Ryan Paddy (talk) 01:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation or a list?

I created the list 2020 Vision last night, and I've tagged it as {{disambig}}, but I'm not sure if that's quite right, or if it ought to be listed as a set-index article? I realise to list it in the latter, it needs to all be of a common type, which two of the included articles are not, for which I guess I could split the article to make a separate dab page. What do you guys think this should be defined as, and therefore, which style should be applied to it?

See also

"When the list includes a short introduction and a longer list, it may be advisible to include a "See also" section, that shows related lists and articles, after the introduction and before the list." - Can someone show me a list (preferably a featured list) that actually does this? I'm not sure I'm clear on what it's suppose to look like.  æron phone home  21:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

sneak addition of various other "types of lists"

"list of" and "timeline of" articles are indeed a time-honoured component of Wikipedia. But any suggested new "type of list" in article namespace must be subject to serious scrutiny, and its inclusion would be subject to a clear consensus. For example, there was the attempt to introduce "lists of topics". These were essentially "list of Wikipedia articles", and they have been properly delegated out of main namespace, to Portal:Contents/Lists of topics. The same holds for "outlines", which are essentially also lists of Wikipedia articles, only arranged hierarchically. These are properly delegated to Portal:Contents/Outline_of_knowledge. The crucial difference is between "List of $STUFF", where $STUFF is a verifiably encyclopedic topic, and "List of $STUFF_ON_WIKIPEDIA", which is an indexing effort of content on Wikipedia itself and as such belongs under Portal:Contents per WP:SELFREF. This distinction is extremely important and needs to be observed scrupulously. --dab (𒁳) 20:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The types aren't new. They've been around a long time, but under other names, though glossaries have been called glossaries for many years. Structured lists are outlines and renaming them to "Outline of" follows WP:COMMONNAME. The same guideline applies to "Index of" articles. Besides, those two types of article have been competing for the same "List of" name, and you can't name two articles with the same title, so renaming them by type was the most obvious solution.

Lists of topics were not delegated out of the main namespace, only the the page they are listed on was moved, and that was primarily because of the graphical formatting of that page. The topics lists themselves are still in the main namespace, where they've been for years, if not since the beginning.

There are hundreds of lists in article space named "Glossary of", hundreds more named "Outline of", and hundreds more named "Index of". The list guideline needs to be updated to reflect the current state 'o' the 'pedia. The Transhumanist 21:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

(editconflict)

1. These Outlines (aka basic topic lists) are not new. See [3] (diff from 2001)
2. The 2 portals you point to, consist of nothing but links to pages in mainspace, and always have done. So do all the other Portal:Contents subportals.
3. There are many types of page in mainspace that are concerned with indexing and/or navigation: Category:Lists of lists (and hundreds of other Category:Lists subcategories) and Category:Indexes of articles and Category:Glossaries and Category:Timelines and Category:Bibliographies by subject and Category:Disambiguation pages (including set index articles), etc. Where they belong has been asked repeatedly, but there is no good solution. We cannot move them out of mainspace because then they would not be discovered in a search. We specifically cannot move them to portalspace, because portalspace is a mess of subpages which is not included in the default search (eg, if one searches for "Africa" in portalspace, only about 4 of those 2621 results are useful: Portal:Africa, Portal:Current events/Africa, Portal:Military history of Africa, and Portal:South Africa.)

Hopefully that addresses some of your concerns. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

it was a long uphill battle to get rid of the "glossary" and "list of topics" articles. You are basically using WP:OTHERCRAP as a rationale for writing guidelines. Wikipedia has also had crappy and invalid articles, continuously since 2001, and yet there never was a consensus that this is the way it should be, and consequently we won't accept a guideline telling people it is ok to write crappy articles because they have always been around. This edit summary is an insult to every principle of proper behaviour and our project goals. Wikipedia guidelines aren't reports on the status or quality the project currently is in, they are descriptions of what we are aiming for. What we are certainly not aiming for is giant clutter of worthless list article crowding article namespace. Sheesh. We have categories for that. As this very guideline points out very clearly, "Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles; thus, they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies". I haven't seen a single attempt at a semblance of a defense of these "outlines" as encyclopedic articles within Wikipedia's content policies. If you cannot deliver that, there is nothing to discuss here. --dab (𒁳) 14:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

1. There are purely navigation-centered pages throughout Wikipedia mainspace. From disambiguation pages to lists of lists. e.g. People (disambiguation) and Lists of people.
2. What do you mean by "long uphill battle"? Nobody has "gotten rid" of "glossary"/"index"/"list of topic" articles. There are hundreds of each of those.

Are you wanting to suggest that we move all of these to a new namespace? (That's been suggested before: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 14#Index lists in Nov 2007, where you said: "But type (2) "cheatsheet formats" like List of mathematics topics can actually be useful as long as they are intelligently arranged and not alphabetized.")

That said, I think I understand your opposition to including the "Index of [topic]" pages in this guideline. Perhaps we need a new 'guideline' for listing these navigational methods? (this also came up recently at Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Gee, are those the only forms of navigational facility?) However, the glossaries and outlines and timelines fall somewhere between article-status and navigation-status, depending on how well developed/referenced they are.

As the thread you started in May 2009 at WP:AN concluded - please feel free to start an RfC if you still think there are unaddressed problems. I've tried many, many times to solicit more feedback (usually at the various Vpumps); more is always a good thing, but we would prefer it without the hyperbole and vitriol. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines describe the way things are usually done. Obviously these other types of stand-alone lists exist, and have existed for years. Since these types of lists exist, it seems obvious to me that they should be mentioned here. At present, I don't see consensus here for the removal of this material - mostly I see support for it. I don't see anything near support for the removal of the mention. Granted, too few people have weighed in to really judge. If you want to remove this section, I think (a) you need to make a case why the guideline (which should describe the way things are) shouldn't reflect the reality that these types of lists exists, and have existed far longer than either of us have been on the project.

If, on the other hand, you're argument is that they shouldn't exist, then changing the guideline isn't the way to do it. A major decision about what is acceptable in Wikipedia can't be made like this. We need broad discussion by the community. Guettarda (talk) 21:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

What he said. In addition, a style guide is by definition prescriptive, and not descriptive, so that argument simply does not fly. → ROUX ₪ 00:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Guettarda said "Policies and guidelines describe the way things are usually done", and is supporting the retention of the material that dbachmann wishes to delete from this guideline.

The policy page WP:BURO says "Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive."

I'm not sure who you were agreeing with, but it wasn't either of those! -- Quiddity (talk) 02:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what style guides actually are, then. Style guides, by their very definition, indicate how something should be written, and not necessarily how they are currently written; they push for a uniform standard. Unless you can show me that the standards prescribed by this style guide are in effect across Wikipedia...? Thought not. For example, where I used to work we did a lot of work on behalf of clients. Each of them had a style guide that we had to follow for communications materials produced on their behalf. Did the existence of this guide describe what actually went out of the client? No. It prescribed what should go out. Similarly, the NYTimes has an in-house style guide for grammar, composition, etc. It tells reporters how to write, and by severe application of it, ends up describing what is published. But make no mistake: it is prescriptive, and not descriptive. That is what style guides are. → ROUX ₪ 18:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is the way rules/policies/styleguides work in the rest of the world, but not at Wikipedia. If it worked here as it does in the rest of the world, then we wouldn't have to place the wording "Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive" in policy, would we?

You might like to ask for clarification at WT:NOT, or, read the original thread at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 20#Proposed new section: Wikipedia is not governed by statute. (I do agree that it is a very zen way of explaining things. We actually work with a feedback loop of descriptive/prescriptive. However...)

All of that doesn't change the fact that you were not in agreement with Guettarda, which is half of what I was trying to point out. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

look, if article indices are to be included under this guideline as validly placed in article namespace, you will have to remove the long-standing Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles; thus, they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies. There is no way this is arguable, since it directly conflicts with Wikipedia policy. These "outlines" by their intention are not Wikipedia articles and they do not satisfy Wikipedia's content policies. Hence there is no way they belong in article space. This isn't just a no-brainer, it is also a direct corollary of this guideline.

If you can produce a true consensus that "'outlines' are a special class of navigation-centered pages in main namespace, and each topic should have ideally its own 'outline' page", then I will have to stand down as a single editor vs. community consensus. But there is no such consensus. This "WOOK" think is an appalling train-wreck that was snuck into the project under our noses, and the handful of ill-advised people touting it quite apparently aren't even capable of appreciating the genuine and wide-ranging consequences their of their actions.

This is an extremely controversial proposal, and by saying "controversial" I am being extremely polite seeing that nothing has so far been presented in its defense other than WP:OTHERCRAP along the lines of "some such pages have been hanging around main namespace for years".

Make a decent proposal of whatever this WOOK thing is supposed to achieve and then submit it to true scrutiny by the community. Including a coherent rationale why is must be in main namespace, and cannot reside under Portal:Contents. Like a positive rationale why you think this is the way to go, not just WP:ILIKEIT WP:IDHT, ok? Then see how the community reacts. Just don't edit-war over guidelines before you have even bothered to appreciate the concerns raised, let alone presented a coherent answer to them.

This won't go away just like that. If people keep revert warring over this guideline, it'll just have to be slapped with all sorts of dispute tags, rendering it useless. --dab (𒁳) 16:13, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You are supposed to assume good faith. I'll try to explain things more clearly in the next post. The Transhumanist 20:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

There are only 7 pages that are "under" Portal:Contents. Those 7, and their contents (100% of which is links to pages in mainspace), have all been widely scrutinized already (it was added to the Mediawiki:Sidebar in March 2007, in much the same state it is currently in). See Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign for background. There were many discussions at the Village pump, and elsewhere. Items don't go into the site-wide sidebar for 2 years without attracting scrutiny...

It would make things clearer if we could confine ourselves to discussing one topic at a time here: This thread should be about whether to mention any/all of "glossaries, index lists, and outlines" in this guideline.

I've suggested a couple of ideas, such as creating a new page/guideline to cover all the navigation-style pages that currently reside in mainspace (disambigs, lists of lists, indexes, topic lists), as well as the pages that straddle the definitions of navigational-list and clearly-encyclopedic-article (glossaries, timelines, outlines, topic lists). Would you care to respond to any of those points? Or pick a new venue for them to be re-raised in?

To summarise: this is really not the best venue to complain about the existence of the Outline project. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I've just discovered these Outlines and they just strike me as an unnecessary and very bad idea. Essentially just lists of lists. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:27, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disapprove of outlines, at least in article space. The argument that they are part of the status quo because they have existed so long is deeply unfair. Nobody was aware of them because they were not linked from other mainspace articles. This is also witnessed by the fact that even though they clearly don't pass the notability guideline, no exception was added for them, not even implicitly (as in the case of disambiguation pages or redirects) through other guidelines mentioning them. Hans Adler 21:26, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Outlines and indexes have been included since the beginning; and a proposal

This guideline was created at 7:03 on December 20, 2003. page history

Seven minutes later, at 7:10, outlines and indexes were added, along with the "Format of the lists" section like this:

There are several formats currently used on Wikipedia. They include:


*alphabetized lists such as List of economics topics 
*categorized or hierarchical lists such as List of marketing topics or List of finance topics
*annotated lists such as List of business theorists or Production, costs, and pricing 

The best format is difficult to determine because it depends on which of the uses a list is being
 put to in any specific instance. If the list is being used by someone familiar with the 
subject, then an hierarchical list would be prefered. If used by someone not familiar with the 
topic, then an alphabetical list would be more useful. Probably the best compromise is an 
annotated hierarchical list. This is helpful to both groups. Then there is the question of 
whether the list is being used primarily for navigational purposes or 'pedia development 
purposes. There is also the question of whether the user is looking for a specific topic, a 
group of related topics, or just browsing.


Currently there is no single recommended format.

And they are still here today, in the "General formatting" section.

"Outline" is another name for "hierarchical list". "Index" is another name for "alphabetical list".

Both kinds of list were competing for the "List of" titles. You couldn't have a hierarchical list (e.g., Outline of psychology) called "List of" if an alphabetical list (e.g., Index of psychology articles) already had the "List of" title. And vice versa.

Many editors have been working hard to clean up this mess.

The Outline of knowledge WikiProject has been renaming (or merging) existing hierarchical "List of basic" and "List of" articles to "Outline of". The Index WikiProject has been renaming alphabetical "List of" articles to "Index of".

I've been coordinating both WikiProjects, and I've been assisted by a team of very talented editors. I'm very proud of the quality of work they've been doing.

The Transhumanist 20:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Glossaries are covered in the Specialized "list of" articles section, right after Timelines.

P.P.S: Proposal and request: please let me update the guideline to reflect the above situation. I'd like to update a sentence in the lead paragraph to this: The titles of these articles usually begin with "list of", "outline of", "timeline of", "glossary of", or "index of".

• Support proposal - as proposer. The Transhumanist 21:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Well-explained. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support. This not only helps organize Wikipedia but serves as a way for new contributions and possibilities to emerge. -- penubag  (talk) 11:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - these 'outline' articles should not exist in the first place. → ROUX ₪ 12:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per ROUX. Almost all of these should be a category hierarchy. The rare exceptions should be just that ... exceptions, not requiring a modification of the guideline. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Categories do not preclude lists. See WP:CLN - The Transhumanist 17:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Would List of cutaneous conditions be considered an outline? Dabomb87 (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • It's a hierarchical list. See also Outline of sharks. The Transhumanist 17:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose the proposed language and also have issues with the philosophy that is behind the proposal (while of course recognizing the significant value of TH's coordination on this issue and of the efforts of the editors working with him). We have to recognize that at least some of the users who come to this guideline are looking to answer the following simple question: "I want to start an article that is a list; what should I name it?" The current wording gives a great, clear answer: "List of . . . " would be a fine title for that new list article. With TH's proposed language, the editor would have 5 choices. And because TH fails to propose adding any guidance on when to use each of the five, this guideline would not be much of a guideline any more, at least with respect to list naming. More broadly I think WP would benefit greatly by TH soliciting more community input before moving the WP:WPOOK and WP:WPINDEX projects (in the latter of which, he seems to be the only participant) too much farther down the field. On its face, if you read his sentence above literally ("... has been renaming (or merging) existing hierarchical "List of basic" and "List of" articles to "Outline of" and "... has been renaming alphabetical "List of" articles to "Index of", it implies that WP will be left with no "list of" articles, since every list of article is either alphabetical or hierarchical. Is this what the community really wants? UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • What is the "significant value" you referred to? The Transhumanist 17:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
    • At this point, starting the process of gathering community thinking on and input to this issue is the most significant, in my opinion. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
      • What about the other 99.9% of the effort? The Transhumanist 19:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Because "List of" pages are divided between two types, at least some users will come to this guideline looking to answer the following question: I want to start an article that is an alphabetical list, but there is already a hierarchical list named "List of"; what should I name it? The Transhumanist 19:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
    • I think one answer to that question could be, creating a second, separate list constitutes an undesirable content fork, and WP has many, many other tools (wikitable sortable being only one) to present the information of a single article in multiple ways. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
      • What are they? The Transhumanist 20:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Of the five titles presented, "List of" is the most ambiguous. The other four are pretty self-explanatory, but are further detailed under the first heading of the guideline. The Transhumanist 19:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• COMMENT the opposers should try to explain why this is a "train wreck", and why this is causing so much harm. So far I've only seen IDONTLIKEIT, but I'll admit I have been unable to follow the very many threads all over the project about this topic. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 20:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support It is difficult to navigate a maze like Wikipedia , where articles get added in an uncoordinated manner. There are many ways to do it, and they should all be encouraged. Several good schemes, started early on have withered through lack of participation. There are many ways to organize, & as a librarian, I know all the extensive arguments for and against each of them. In practice, whatever scheme people are willing to work on is the best--anything can work if people maintain it; nothing can work if they do not. As we cannot compel anyone to work on anything, we have to accommodate what our volunteers actually want to do. At the moment, the greatest activity and the hardest work seems to be the outlines. That's therefore where efforts should go. There are other well established methods like categories, that should continue also. The other systems used should be kept around because someone might come along and be willing to keep them updated them also. I was delightd to see The Tranhumanist's project, and so should anyone be who cares about the users and realises that they are unpredictable. And in general, to try to block other people's projects is not usually all that helpful. DGG (talk) 00:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Without having looked at this issue in detail, I'd say that "List of" and "Timeline of" are obvious, plain English names. "Index of" and "Outline of" are rather jargony and ambiguous. The argument that there needs to be a naming convention to allow for both simple and heirarchical lists of the same subjects does make sense. But it's unfortunate for the solution to involve renaming "List of" articles to less clear names. If there needs to be a distinction, couldn't it be "List of" and "Heirarchical list of", or something unambiguous of that sort? Also, I would comment that the question of how long something has been part of Wikipedia is irrelevant. All that matters is what is best going forward. As an aside, the namespace question seems like a storm in a teacup. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support so long as it is made clear that indexes and outlines are lists of articles to aid navigation, not lists of subjects as with other "list of" articles. Ryan Paddy (talk) 10:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support It is a fact that we do have lists with these names, there are about 190 Outlines in category:outlines. We have consensus that Outlines should be allowed in main namespace, see results for AFD in 2009,1, 2, 3, 4. 2 KEEP and 2 SPEEDY KEEP. If you oppose go to WP:AFD, WP:RM, WP:RFC or any other WP:3LA and argue in the right place, now let this guideline reflect this consensus. --Stefan ^talk 00:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment There may be consensus, but your links don't demonstrate it. Deletion and renaming debates are separate things, even though people want those lists to exist it doesn't mean they like the names. And 190? That's a very small number. To be fair though, I'd say "Index of" is more jargony than "Outline of", which is almost a decent name. And this talk page is an appropriate venue to discuss changes to the associated article, surely. Ryan Paddy (talk) 05:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Comment Yes the naming can be discussed, and this is a good talk page to discuss it, but this TOPIC is a !vote to include the outline style of pages to the standalone list style guide, do you oppose that???? Because your comment does not indicate that! It only indicates that you think that the name could be better and I agree with that! This is not a simple little nice first dicussion, this have been going on for a long time, see WP:OOKDISC for more background about this issue. The AFD links shows that there is consensus to keep the outlines, which is the only other argument against this proposal except the name change. Since that consensus exists this is the wrong place to discuss deletion and use that as an argument. Lets update the style guideline, take the whole matter to RfC, RM, XXX or whatever to end these teacup storms forever. --Stefan ^talk 01:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
      • Comment I'm perfectly willing to change my !vote if convincing argument is forthcoming. But "stop arguing here" is not very convincing. I've had a look at the Outlines project, and I can see now how an "Outline" is a high-level guide to a broad subject area. Which differentiates it from most hierarchical lists, and also explains why 190 is a bigger number than it appears, because they are broad subject areas. So at this stage I don't have a problem with Outline lists being described here, so long as their purpose is made clear and it's apparent that they are a specific type of hierarchical list for a specific purpose. As for indexes, I've browsed the teeny-tiny project (11 "index" pages in the category so far) and it still seems pointless to me to rename all "lists" to the more jargony "indexes". Please have a look at Transhumanist's post above - he's not just saying that "Outline" and "Index" should be described here, but that all "List" articles should be renamed to "Index" and all hierarchical lists should be renamed to "Outline". That seems like a bad idea, and I wouldn't want to see that bad idea reflected in the wording of this article. Fundamentally I think most lists should keep the "List of" name because it's the most intuitive. Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:30, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

To clear up some confusion, TT's proposal states that alphabetical "List of" articles should be renamed to reflect their contents, not all list articles. Articles that serve as an alphabetical index to a topic, the sort that usually ends up in the back of a book, would be renamed, whereas lists that provide detailed information about the contents or are arranged in a information rich order, like List of US Presidents, would be untouched; they aren't indexes under the definition that WikiProject Index uses. To see a long standing example of an index, WikiProject Mathematics has kept one at List of mathematics articles. (NB, I'm not intending to step into WPMath's business here, but this is something that the index project would consider an index.) --Gimme danger (talk) 23:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that does clarify it for me and I've changed my !vote to suit. Ryan Paddy (talk) 10:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't see how this accomplishes anything that can't be done by a nav-template or even a well-written parent article. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Outline namespace issues

the question is not, do we need article indices (we do, see Portal:Contents, but why do Transhumanist and friends insist that these indices must be in namespace, and why do they insist to shove them in people's face, by linking them prominently from actual articles, in hatnotes and in special talkpage templates? Let them compile article indices if they think this is helpful and if they enjoy the task, nobody is objecting to that. As long as they stop fishing for traffic to their indices from all over Wikipedia.

Seriously, I keep asking "why article namespace" and I keep getting replies like "but Wikipedia is so difficult to navigate" wth? How about addressing the actual issue? Never mind that I have never used an article index in my life, using the search function (and google) being far more efficient. --dab (𒁳) 19:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

We've explained in numerous threads why they cannot be moved to a different namespace.

We've pointed out past threads that proposed new namespaces, or suggested moving various pages to an existing namespace. All of which proposals were rejected. (eg Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 14#Index lists (Nov 2007) and Wikipedia:Move navigational lists to portal namespace (Jan–Mar 2008) and many more (earlier list of them at User:Shyam/List_Namespace#Prior_proposals))

I'll repeat some of the points, again:

1. "There are a LOT of navigational pages in mainspace, that for technical reasons should really remain there (Category:Disambiguation pages, Category:Lists of lists, Category:Indexes of articles, and many more), and there are a lot that are somewhere between a navigational(index) page and an article (Category:Glossaries and Category:Timelines and Category:Bibliographies by subject and Category:Outlines and more)." (Quoted from here)
2. "Each type has appeal/benefits/problems. Compare: Japan, Outline of Japan, Index of Japan-related articles, Portal:Japan, Category:Japan, Category:WikiProject Japan articles. (plus all the various sidebar and footer navboxes). Yes, there could be a perfect, autogenerated, utterly-intuitive, never too-much nor too-little indexing system, but noone has built it so far... Until then, we have these manually created lists/indices." (ibid)
3. "The portal namespace is not included in our site search (and cannot be, because the profusion of subpages makes searching portal-namespace painful) hence moving indexes [or topic lists or outlines] there makes them basically invisible to the readers (unless we scatter links to the outlines everywhere)." "(eg, if one searches for "Africa" in portalspace, only about 4 of those 2621 results are useful: Portal:Africa, Portal:Current events/Africa, Portal:Military history of Africa, and Portal:South Africa.)" (Quoted from here and here)

Regarding "I have never used an article index in my life...", the suggestion that because you don't use a system, the system is therefor useless, is just wrong. Different people appreciate information in different forms - eg infoboxes are always redundant/duplicative (or are meant to be at least) but some people appreciate their format. Also, redlinks: can't exist in categories, but should exist in indexes and articles.

Regarding "shove them in people's face": Well, you and others have alternately accused the Outline project of being too quiet ("shadow wikipedia", "under the radar", etc), and being too loud. I do agree that the hatnotes are inappropriate, but I disagree that the talkpage templates and wikiproject notices are inappropriate. But that's a completely separate issue to namespace, and is not related to this talkpage at all. Mixing up unrelated issues makes discussion vastly more complicated.

Lastly, to repeat one more time, if you want a wide discussion on namespace, or anything else, then take it to a wider venue. AN, and ANI, and here, and the outline wikiproject talkpage, are not appropriate venues for feedback on such issues. The Village pump, or similar, would be appropriate. But as we keep pointing out, it has been tried many times before, so please, please, take the history into account. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. It appears that you have — at least a moderate lack of object, if not consensus — for "outline" articles. However, VP is a completely inappropriate venue. Subject (or perhaps Style) RfC, here, or the WikiProject talk page are appropriate venues. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

And you have not explained why the outlines with arbitrary redlinks shouldn't be in project-space; only indicies of actual articles belong in mainspace. (Especially with Kosovo, where some of the redlinks would only be populated if it's a country.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Nonsense (hopefully you just meant the RFC suggestion):

We've suggested RFCs before (3 people at the end of this thread, myself in this thread, and 3 people in this thread including you explaining why you weren't going to do it yourself). That would be fine too. But discussing the namespace issues for thousands of pages can't be decided on in some relative backwater like this guideline's talkpage. It affects more than outlines, as you hint at above. Some editors think all indices belong outside of mainspace.

I don't understand why you think all of the 4 VPs are "a completely inappropriate venue" for discussing namespace issues etc, but you're welcome to discuss these issues wherever you think best. In my experience, RfCs tend to get less feedback than VP threads, which is why I suggested it above. Plus RfCs can be incorporated into VP threads. However, it is all up to you, or dbachmann, or whomever.

Re: Redlinks and Kosovo:

You only just asked me to. (?)

• Because they are not plain indices. They are more like Timeline of radio or Timeline of architectural styles - structured lists with encyclopedic potential.
• WP:Redlinks are valuable. Categories can't have them, articles/lists can and often should.
• Are you just talking about drafts that haven't been properly cleaned up (eg Outline of Kosovo), or about good outlines that have proper WP:Redlinks (eg Outline of forestry) ? I agree that some of the outlines are underwhelming, and some were moved out of the list of drafts too quickly. I'd be fine with the idea of moving the very incomplete ones back to projectspace (eg back on top of the redirect at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Drafts/Outline of Kosovo).

Oh, after much searching, I think you must be referring to the questions at Portal talk:Contents/Outline of knowledge#namespace discipline. I hadn't seen that thread in a while. Hopefully the above explanations and suggestions partly answer your questions from there.

I'm happy to try to answer questions, but I'm not infallible, or the projectleader. I've agreed in countless threads that the OOK project needs more feedback and guidance and assistance. I'm thankful for all the people who do assist. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Putting purely navigational aides in article space is bad. They do not belong in article space since they aren't articles - they consist ENTIRELY of original research since they are all unreferenced (and by definition can't be referenced), they are designed solely and unambiguously designed to be a navigational aid, there is no compelling technical reason for them to not be in article space (unlike disambiguation pages), and they are one giant self-reference. The argument that "users can't find them in portal space" doesn't logically conclude to "they should be in article space". Argue for a new namespace if you have to, but they definitely don't belong in article space. -Halo (talk) 17:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

On what basis can you claim that navigational aides in article space is "bad"? The opposite is explicitly stated here, nor do outlines violate WP:DIRECTORY. As far as the OR claim goes, the standard outline template includes a reference section by default with the premise that references should be included. Perhaps the WPOOK editors would have some time to actually work on the outlines instead of having to continually rebut asinine claims based on personal opinion (for the record, I actually a reference on a draft I've been working on). Minnecologies (talk) 17:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

You said "Argue for a new namespace if you have to...". Did you read my comments? We already tried that, many times, and it was rejected each time. New namespaces are bloody complicated. If you want to try proposing it again, read up on the past attempts, and feel free to try it yourself. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

you do not seem to have an understanding of the purpose of list articles. List articles are indeed lists, but they are lists of verifiably encyclopedic entities. They are not lists of Wikipedia-related items, which would violate WP:SELFREF. A classic example of a list article is, say, List of Hittite kings. This is undoubtedly an encyclopedic list, and if challenged, it will be very simple to find such a list, an actual list of Hittite kings in the relevant literature, i.e. in scholarly literature about the Hittites. This is the {{notability}} threshold that any list article should meet, and this is how list articles are very different from simple navigational aids. What you are doing here is part of the problem described at Wikipedia:Boxes, only you are making it ten times worse by leaving the boxes and letting the clutter spill into main Wikipedia namespace without any sort of containment. --dab (𒁳) 08:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

But I like putting things into boxes. No one's asking you to put things into boxes, so can't you let the box people have their fun? Sorry to be so flip, but I've been following this discussion for, what, four months now, and I honestly don't understand your strong objection to outlines. I think it would be helpful for everyone if we could have a one sentence summary of "dab thinks outlines should rot in hell and this is why". --Gimme danger (talk) 09:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

You seem to think that certain lists existed in portal namespace at one time. Why? (Where? When?)

"Timelines", and "Indexes", and "Lists of lists", and articles on specific years (eg 1920s, 1777), and disambiguation pages, and glossaries, and MANY more types, HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IN MAINSPACE.^* Sorry for shouting, but you seem to keep ignoring that point, which we keep pointing out.

You are correct that it is an imperfect method. You are welcome to try proposing a new namespace for these; but it has been tried before, and failed; I provided a few links above so that you could learn why these previous proposals failed. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC) *[at least, since 2005, before which I only know about the circumstances I've either read about or had to investigate previously].

"If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance?"

Fame - X < Fame, .:. Noone is Notable. If you remove the a notable thing about someone, are they less notable? In every case the answer has to be Yes, and therefore no person is ever included in a list of people famous for X. Turned round the other way, just for the sake of completeness, as I suspect it was not intended, everyone is included because everyone is less famous. Anarchangel (talk) 13:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Lexical lists

The following change was made and reverted to this policy: The sentence Also, lists of words, particularly if they are chosen to follow a lexical pattern may be better off in Wiktionary. was added to the section Appropriate topics for lists.

The following discussion is copied from User talk:The Transhumanist.

What does "lexical pattern" include?

It sounds pretty general. Don't all glossaries have lexical patterns? I mean, they're lists of definitions. You can't get more lexical than that, right? So are you saying that all glossaries are out?

Just curious.

I look forward to your reply on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 02:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

No, glossaries are not formed on lexical patterns at all. They are lists that are used to help read and understand an area or a piece of text of some kind. The Wikipedia is not a lexical work, it's a collection of topics. Valid encyclopedic topics are not lists of words beginning in 'k' or ending in 'ing' or whatever; lists along lexical lines are clearly extremely unencyclopedic and are very dictionary-like.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 09:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, this is so obvious I am having a hard time believing that you are not simply being deliberately disruptive, and to be honest there is a fair amount of evidence that points towards that position.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 09:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

See WP:AGF.

I've always thought "lexical" pertained to dictionaries in general. Here's the wiktionary entry, where many AfD'ers are likely to check first (notice the second context):

1. linguistics - concerning the vocabulary, words or morphemes of a language
2. linguistics - concerning lexicography or a lexicon or dictionary

Here's Webster-Merriam's:

1 : of or relating to words or the vocabulary of a language as distinguished from its grammar and construction

2 : of or relating to a lexicon or to lexicography

According to WM, the primary context of a "lexicon" is "a book containing an alphabetical arrangement of the words in a language and their definitions : dictionary"

So, glossaries are lexical.

Making "lexical" too ambiguous to disallow lexical things in a guideline that includes lexical things (glossaries).

Also, you are being way too esoteric. How many junior and highschool kids (who can and do participate in AfDs) know what "lexical" or "lexical pattern" means?

The Transhumanist 19:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Lexicon, lexicographic, lexical are all about dictionaries. They're about simple collections of letters and morphemes and dictionaries and definitions thereof. WP:DICDEF says that this is what wikipedia is NOT.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

To the extent that you are successful in arguing that glossaries are dictionaries, you're successful in arguing that wikipedia shouldn't have them. That's not my claim. My claim is that the subset of glossaries that are constructed along lexical grounds are unencyclopedic.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Your argument that 'oh it's all so complicated' doesn't really cut it, not when you're arguing for dicdef lists. YOU know what this is about.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for dicdef violations, though I am arguing for glossaries, which some do consider as violating dicdef. And that makes the purpose and meaning of "lexical" and "lexical pattern" with respect to glossaries unclear and very relevant. Does this passage you wish to add, or its likely interpretations, affect glossaries on Wikipedia? I believe that it may, and I would like to see it clarified in such a way that it cannot be interpretted as a prescription to remove glossaries. This is a valid concern, as it is Wikipedia's guidelines and policies that provide the basis for deletion decisions. As it stands currently, WP:LIST and WP:STAND both allow for the existence of glossaries. I don't wish to see any contradictory passage, or any passage which can be interpretted as contradictory to the current practice with respect to glossaries, added to these guidelines. The Transhumanist 19:01, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

My interpretation of the addition is that it is intended solely to keep lists like "Words that begin with 'kn'" and List of Words without vowels out of this project, lists based on the qualities of the words as words, not glossaries (which are lists of words grouped by the concepts they represent) and other word-related lists. The two concerns I have with an insertion of this type are that it be both concise and accessible, and whether it is necessary at all. Is there a real problem with this sort of list or is this an example of instruction creep? It seems like these types of lists would already be prohibited by other policies, like WP:NOT and WP:V. Wolfkeeper, please correct me if I've misunderstood what you were trying to say with this addition. --Gimme danger (talk) 19:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it is adequately covered elsewhere, and would constitute instruction creep if added here. But if it is added, I think it should be explained as concisely as possible in Common English rather than with an esoteric term ("lexical") that is more likely to be misinterpretted. The Transhumanist 19:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It needs to be made clear what a "lexical pattern" is. I suspect many will be confused if they read just that, as I was.

Wolfking, you said earlier "Valid encyclopedic topics are not lists of words beginning in 'k' or ending in 'ing' or whatever"; it may be of interest that List of English words containing Q not followed by U is a WP:Featured list. Are you suggesting it be deleted and moved to Wiktionary? It ended in a no-consensus Keep once already.

Are we saying that these lists of words have no place on Wikipedia, and should be moved over to Wiktionary. I really don't understand. Glossaries are not dictionary definitions of words. The list I brought up is not. Where in Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion do you see that it is okay for word lists to be put there? Here at Wikipedia, we even have a WikiProject for glossaries and a glossary MOS. Let me know if I've interpreted this discussion wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthewedwards (talk • contribs) 21:28, 9 August 2009

I’ve had a shot at summarizing the above and my understanding at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lists of words (specifically this revision): simply, some lists, particularly bare lists, are better at Wiktionary, but encyclopedic lists (especially glossaries) are an established part of Wikipedia.

I think this captures the spirit of the distinction, without giving grounds for removing any useful articles from WP.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 19:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good, as a non-rigid beginning. I'll try to add some more examples, here and there, when I have a moment. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

List of people from (city)??

Here is the relevant statement in the page:

" Note, however, that lists of people organized by individual city should be at List of people from (city), rather than "List of (city) people"."

I think this is inaccurate, as there are people on the lists that are not "from" the particular city, but have lived there after being "from" somewhere else. Case in point: Roy Rogers, was born in Cincinnati, OH, but is much better known as a resident of Apple Valley, California. Saying that Rogers is "from" Apple Valley is wrong, but he deserves inclusion on a list of notable residents.

My solution to this would be to rename that category "Notable residents of (city), past and present".

Discussion? --Manway (talk) 23:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a perfect example: List of people from Pasadena, California - shows "Sir Paul McCartney, famous singer, former member of The Beatles". Now, McCartney may at one time have lived in Pasadena, but he is by no means FROM Pasadena. Is anyone watching this that can discuss this with me? --Manway (talk) 03:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I watch the page, but I missed your starting the thread. I think the sentence you quote can be removed from the guideline: it does not describe actual WP practice. In actual practice, the two naming conventions co-exist. But I disagree with your suggestion to rename the category to a much, much longer formulation, however, for a number of reasons: 1) dropping "List of" means readers will be surprised to find a list when they get to the article; 2) "Notable" is very problematic: the word has a different meaning within and outside WP; and 3) the place to explain "past and present" is in the list's lead, not in the title.

But short answer, you can delete the sentence, in my opinion. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Red links in Featured lists

Input is appreciated at this discussion. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Has this outgrown a list

Resolved

 – Query addressed adequately.

Over at Featured Article review, a query has been raised as to whether List of Parliamentary constituencies in Hertfordshire can still be considered a list. The argument against is here - it's archived so please don't comment there. Cliff notes version - its got way too much explanatory text, and it's not just a list of parliamentary candidates, it's a whole series of lists. Anyone care to venture an opinion. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Should be renamed Parliamentary constituencies in Hertfordshire.  Cs32en  18:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that regardless of whether or not this is a list (but haven't done so because an FLC is open and I don't fully understand the implications). Are you saying that you feel it isn't a list? WFCforLife (talk) 18:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I said that. I think it's a great piece of work, but I think it's outgrown being a list.Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose renaming right now, as a one-off change, for reasons of consistency. The equivalent articles for all the other counties are in the same form, "List of Parliamentary constituencies in ______" It does not make sense to change only this one and leave the others the same. If the initiative were to change all of them, I would not be opposed. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I intend to do similar work on all of them eventually, although my more immediate concern is to get the table into all of them by June 2010. It's unlikely that I would consider prose changes to any of the other lists before then. WFCforLife (talk) 22:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

(admittedly, that doesn't have a bearing on whether or not this is currently a list, although I still think it is) WFCforLife (talk) 22:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The renaming is certainly not an urgent issue, yet we should not call a list what actually is not a list, and I don't see a compelling reason for not having some articles named "List of X of Y" and others "X of Y".  Cs32en  23:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The question is whether it still constitutes a list article in Wikipedia terms (and so can qualify as a Featured List), rather than what to call it.

It clearly is not such a list under those terms, but a well-developed regular article containing some lists. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Rename it, because it's not a list any more. The others can be renamed if they're updated to no longer be lists. Consistency of naming across a class of articles is not as important as the accurate naming of individual articles. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input everyone. Although my personal opinion remains unchanged, I'm happy that at least there was clear consensus one way or the other. I've moved the page accordingly. On a slight tangent, could a few people take a look at this? That seems to be an even more contentious one. Thanks, WFCforLife (talk) 03:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

LIsts of arrests for a certain crime

I was planning to create a list of people arrested for driving under the influence, naturally I don't want to go to the trouble if it doesn't meet the criteria to remain on wikipedia. Would such a list (fully referenced of course) be acceptable? Freikorp (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Having been arrested for driving under the influence is not a significant part of the biography of most, if not all people. Neither is it a significant characteristic of a specific group of people. Such a list would therefore not be acceptable, as far as I know.  Cs32en Talk to me  20:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Reverts By Collectorian

I noticed something in the first sentence that I did not keep keep as the original. This was:

"There are a several list formats, both generalized and specialized, that are currently used on Wikipedia, for list articles."

from

"There are a number of formats, both generalized and specialized, that are currently used on Wikipedia, for list articles."

I will change that accordingly.

According to wp:policy and guidelines, guideline pages should be

• be clear and concise. Be both plain and concise. Clarity and terseness are not in opposition: direct and brief writing is more clear.
• emphasize the spirit of the rule. Verbosity is not a defense against misinterpretation. Be unambiguous and specific: avoid platitudes and generalities.
• maintain scope, avoid redundancy. Avoid needless reminders

Alphabetization is a form of categorization. That was why I removed it as a format.

"index of-" articles are proposed to be moved to "list of -", as there seems to be no difference.174.3.98.236 (talk) 14:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The existing reads better and is clearer than your version. And please observe WP:BRD. Your bold edits were reverted. You do not just keep reverting because you like yours better. Discuss it and get consensus rather than edit war. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Guideline Conflation

A discussion about the conflation of wikipedia:lists, wikipedia:stand-alone lists, wikipedia:embedded lists, and wikipedia:WTUT is occuring at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Lists. If you decided to contribute please contribute there.174.3.98.236 (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I Just Have A Question About The Guideline

What does the sentence mean: "When the list includes a short introduction and a longer list, it may be advisible to include a "See also" section, that shows related lists and articles, after the introduction and before the list."?174.3.98.236 (talk) 18:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I gather that is in reference to articles like List of Ford vehicles, where the lists of Mercury, Lincoln, and Edsel automobiles are mentioned in the lead, as they are lists that provide part of the information a person looking for Fords might be seeking.--Father Goose (talk) 22:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Every Single Featured List Is A Table

Every single featured list I have clicked on is a table. Is this what lists should strive for?

Lists and tables are completely different things. So is this what the policy (essentially) is?174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:53, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Lists can be presented in a table if the data / elements are best displayed that way. Lists (the concept of how data is presented) need not be bulleted or numbered lists (the format of how data is presented). --MASEM (t) 05:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

How many more places are you going to post about this already? I think you've just hit about every WT list page there is....as Masem notes, being termed a "list" does not require a list be bulleted nor numbered - often time tables ARE better. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Featured lists has standardized upon a table format for list articles. For embedded lists, bullets, numbers, or other formats may work better.--Father Goose (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Father Goose, you know what, that makes sense. Our guidelines wp:embedded lists and wp:when to use tables doesn't cover this. It's confusing. Maybe we can help make these guidelines more clear and more guide-like.174.3.98.236 (talk) 17:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you have a clear sense of what should be changed in these guidelines, make modest adjustments and find out if people object to them. If nobody rejects the changes, you're fine; if they revert you, try to make the case for why the edits should be made on the talk page.

Be aware that adding "new rules" to guideline/policy pages (i.e., "this is how things should be done") is often opposed. Much less controversial is documenting existing community behavior -- i.e., turning a de facto standard into a de jure standard.--Father Goose (talk) 06:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fix Required

"Fictional creatures at list of fictional dogs, etc., with real-life examples at list of dogs." is a sentence fragment. Needs to be fixed.174.3.98.236 (talk) 18:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

By all means, fix it right away. I doubt anyone could find such a change objectionable.--Father Goose (talk) 22:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Cool:)174.3.98.236 (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

References

Does a list of notable people associated with city X require references if each entry has their own properly sourced WP page? Thanks, PDCook (talk) 12:10, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Consider that every page in WP may be read offline by itself; references are necessary to support that type of reading mode. --MASEM (t) 12:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. There seems to be a disparity of opinion on this. I've seen in some articles comments that if the subjects have a WP page, then references are not necessary, and I've seen unreferenced tags placed on other such lists. I would tend to error on side of over-referencing, but I'm sure if I start referencing such lists and try to set some standard on the lists I'm interested in, I'd be met with resistance. PDCook (talk) 14:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Be bold and add refs - you're likely duplicating what's already on the sourced page so this is not like you're challenging the assertions. Since we're dealing with people, it's doubly important to have references (even though "people from X" is usually not as contentious as other aspects of WP:BLP's. If people start complaining, point them here. --MASEM (t) 14:34, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to consolidate some or all of the list guidelines

Please see Wikipedia talk:Lists#Consolidation?. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Lead and selection criteria reg football player lists

Following a discussion here, and a lack of input from the associated footy page, I'd like to bring the discussion up here, as it should be settled properly once and for all. It has been a point of some contention whether "Lists of X players" should include all X, or if there's some leeway to cut off the list at some arbitrary point (say 100 appearances). The latter has so far been the way of doing it in the FL-proces of current such lists (of which there a dozens).

Therefor to avoid future discussions on this the selection criteria could be expanded to include the importance of consensus: "In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed, list definitions should be based on reliable sources or community consensus."

Whatever is decided I hope to get some clarity on the issue, because as of now, it is not clear at all. Sandman888 (talk) 11:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you're allowed to set selection criteria that prevent indiscriminate inclusion of every player that happened to belong to a team long enough for the ink to dry on the contract. The criteria need to be explicitly named in the WP:LEAD. It is neither necessary nor appropriate to change the title to function as a definition ("List of A players that appeared 100 times according to B source between 1900 and the last for which complete numbers are available").

We expect editors to use some editorial judgment, and to follow the sources when that's reasonably possible. For example, if a reliable source says that 10 appearances is their minimum, then we don't want editors to choose 8 (because that includes my favorite new player) or 15 (because that excludes my least favorite player). If no source says or cares, then editors can and should make sensible choices (i.e., community consensus). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

An RfC has begun on the WT:FOOTY#Name of football player lists page regarding proper naming. Sandman888 (talk) 19:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

New type of list selection criteria

I would like to add additional type of list selection criteria. I want to add the text below as second in the list:

Every entry meets a threshold were there exist at least one source that confirms some level of notability. The threshold is lighter then notability criteria and the listed entries may not be entitled an own article in English Wikipedia.

I want to adapt this on List of participants of the Gaza flotilla. Text twaekings? comments? support? --Kslotte (talk) 10:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I am punting for a requirement that all list entries be significant where that is defined by consensus by the list article editors. In many cases, significant will be defined to be notable which immediately takes care of navigation lists.

Notability of lists

Can someone explain how notability for lists work. Does a list have to be notable? Does every item on the list have to be notable? Does the list itself have to be notable? Or is there really no guidlines on notability of lists? SunCreator (talk) 10:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, there is no consensus yet as to how exactly notability affects lists. Some lists are deleted because of failing notability guidelines, while others are generally kept inspite of obviously violating those same rules. What can be said though is that if a list meets the GNG, it is fairly safe from deletion. As for the list itmes, not every item on a list has to be notable. Due weight determines content, not notability. Goodraise 12:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I also asked at the Village pump. SunCreator (talk) 19:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

It's very clear. Wikipedia lists are lists of links to articles. Articles must be on notable subjects. Therefore the items in a list must be notable subjects, even if an article hasn't been written for those subjects yet. If there is no evidence of notability of an item in a list, it should be removed. If there are no notable items in a whole list, the list article should be removed. There may be some exceptions for very specific types of list, but on this whole this is true of most lists of simple concepts, such as lists of buildings, people, animals, etc. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think this should be made more explicit in this guideline. As it stands now, this guideline says that list definitions should be based on reliable sources, but that is not explicit enough about its notability. I dispute Masem's revert of my edit[4]. I don't think this guideline can be silent on WP:Source list. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not clear at all! Or are you (GavinRyan) saying that lists of songs can only include notable songs? See e.g. Aesop Rock discography or do we need to take away the former members from the List of Slipknot band members since they might not be notable (just assuming that they are not. maybe they are??) or take away all non notable episodes from the Veronica Mars (season 3). The policies are not clear, they can be read either way and should be clarified. (all my three examples above are Featured Lists just to make sure they are actually lists and that they have some kind of consensus on what should be in them). --Stefan ^talk 14:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It is very clear that consensus has asserted that individual elements of a list do not need to be notable, if it is necessary to include the elements to complete the encyclopedic summary of the overall topic. We are more than just an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 14:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree that consensus is quite clear, but if you read the policies it is not that clear and they should be made more clear. --Stefan ^talk 15:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

To clarify what the rationale for list inclusion actually is, I propose the following wording:

"The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination. To keep the system of lists useful, we must provide a defintion for their subject matter from a reliable souce. Inclusion of material on a list should be based on what reliable sources say, not on what an editor interprets the source to be saying".

I think there has to be some external validation of what a list should contain, whether that comes in the form of a defintion, or a citation showing how the content of list has been derived. Pretending that lists exist for the own sake is a self-referencing argument that is not a valid substitute for a proper rationale for a list's existence. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:08, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Stefan - I think the general rule is that lists should contain items that are notable, because Wikipedia is not a directory and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. For this reason, a list of people/organisations/products who meet some generic criteria, like List of search engines, where the list has the potential to be long and contain many entries that are unlikely to be what the reader is looking for, should only contain notable items in order to maintain focus and create a discriminating collection of information.

As I said there are exceptions for certain types of list, and perhaps the lists you've linked to are examples of those. I think that what defines the lists you've mentioned is a combination of the notability of the parent topic, and the suitability of the number and level of detail of the items to be presented as a list on Wikipedia. For example, the band Slipknot is sufficiently notable that its article could mention all of its members. Because that list of members is of some length and detail, but still not overlong for presentation on Wikipedia, it is best presented as a stand-alone list that includes items that are verifiable but not independently notable, rather than being part of the band's main article. This doesn't make the list a directory, nor a indiscriminate collection of information. By comparison, a list of something generic and unbounded like List of guitarists needs to be limited to notable items, and should not contain non-notable guitarists from Slipknot, or else it would become an indiscriminate directory.

I agree that there needs to be more clarity in this guideline regarding whether any given type of list should contain only notable items. Some discussion will be required to identify exactly what defines the lists that are exceptions to this rule, and how to phrase it, and we should do so with WP:NOT in mind. Ryan Paddy (talk) 00:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

• There is a list at featured list candidates that is very relevant to this discussion. List of forty-plus point games by Kobe Bryant is about a notable person and the listed items are verifiable, but the issue being discussed at the FLC is that there is nothing especially notable about 40 points (e.g. "why not 30 points or 50 points instead?"). Is such a list appropriate? Dabomb87 (talk) 01:45, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

In answer to Ryan Paddy, there definitely needs to be more clarity about notability, but I would have thought that it is the defintion of what a list contains that needs to be externally validated, rather the elements which the list contains. My thoughts on this issue are as follows:

1. Lists without a definition fail WP:NOT;
2. Lists without an externally validated definition fail WP:N;
3. No matter how skillfully the elements of an undefined list are arranged, the are for all intents and purposes a synthesis, because an undefined list involves collecting and organizing material based on an editor's original understanding of the subject, not in a way that has been externally validated or defined.

The example given by Dabomb87 provides a useful starting point. Whether or not the games listed in this list article are themselves notable or not, I could not say, but I would have thought they can be verified. The issue I am concerned about is the lack of an externally validated defintion for the list. As Dabomb87 points out, why not 30 or 50 points instead? In fairness, the answer to this question is provided in the list article itself: "The number of forty-plus point games players accumulate over their careers is often reported in media". I could accept this as a valid defintion, except that the that mass attribution implicit in this statement is not externally sourced. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we are getting somewhere, I agree that lists should be notable and externally defined in some way, i.e. the forty-plus games, might not be a notable list, this also means that the list items does not need to be notable. All this works for me, I think the 'not a directory' can be worked around just by stating that the 'defintion of what a list contains' should be notable and externally validated. With that definition I think we can delete the directory listings but still keep 'good' lists like discography and band members. On the other hand, can I use a telephone book as a source and therefore say that wikipedia should keep lists of all persons in a town :-), that would go against 'not a directory' big time, this needs some more work, but I think the direction is good. --Stefan ^talk 01:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

If that is the case, we should drop the sentence "The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination" and substitute it for something along these lines that is more in tune with existing policy:

In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely for being true or useful. Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content, and they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies. To provide a verifiable rationale for inclusion, we must provide a defintion for their subject matter from a reliable souce. Inclusion of material in a list should be based on what reliable sources say, not on original research.

If anyone has any better wording, please jump in. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:18, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Lists, more than anything else, need to satisfy WP's goal for being non-indiscriminate. This means both in topic (is the grouping itself indiscriminate, like "List of people with "e" in their name") and the contents ("list of people living in New York City") needs to show this. To that end, most lists on WP can fall into two broad classifications (or both in rare cases):

• Source-defined lists are ones where one or more sources explicitly spell out every element that falls into the list with multiple sources likely used to address changes and updates over time. A team roster, for example, etc. where you can find one article and use that as the primary source for the list. Here, because the list is explicitly defined, the elements themselves are discriminate, and thus we need to only question "is this list topic discriminate".
• Membership-defined lists are the more common ones that I can envision. Here, it is usually the case that the membership potential for the list is infinite, or at least certainly indiscriminate, and thus the list is defined with some metric for inclusion, and it is through reasonable justifiation (within the bounds of allowable WP:OR/WP:SYNTH) verification to meet that metric that we include items on the list. Now we have two issues, of course: is the list topic itself indiscriminate, and is the metric for inclusion sufficiently indiscriminate? Take the case of the Kobe 40-pt game list. It's metric is certainly discriminate - while there is no source that likely confirms in one block those are all the games, the metric is clearly met through a source for each resulting game. The question instead fell to if the topic itself was discriminate (questioning "why 40 points? why not 50 pts?", and "why just Kobe?")

The reason to consider how the lists can be formed is that when we then consider the application of notability:

• Source-defined lists likely only need to show the list's topic or topic it supports is notable (and of course discriminate). Individual elements, as already discriminated by the finite listing, need not be notable, though more than likely for these lists, that will have already been shown for most of the elements.
• Membership-defined lists are the ones where the topic is likely notable but no entries are specifically notable. Because of this, both notability and discrimination need to be taken into account: is the list topic or topic it supports notable, and is the grouping a discriminate aspect of that topic? Presuming the first two questions are "yes", then one can then quibble about the membership metric itself, but that will not affect the existence of the list.

So considering these, there are two key metrics for stand-alone lists that need to be considered in the first place to determine if they are viable:

• Notability of the list topic or topic it supports - are we listing something that has no notable topic connected to it just because we can make a list?
• The lack of indiscriminate nature of the list towards the list's topic - is this a necessary aspect of the topic to be listing for our coverage?

And those lead to the third question

• The lack of indiscriminate nature in the membership of the list? - If not already fully defined out by sources, are we cutting too large a swath of representative elements to complete the list to become indiscriminate?

Mind you, nearly all this is subjective, but most have a "know it when I see it"-type answer. --MASEM (t) 14:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

That is why we need some form of external source to validate the existence of list, otherwise there is no rationale for inclusion. A list without a defintion is a collection of of loosely associated topics and fails WP:NOT#DIR. A list without a defintion is like a ship without a captain, and a list without a verfiable defintion is like a ship without a navigator. In order to make lists useful to the readers, they need to have a defintion, and to comply with Wikipedia's content polices, that definition needs to be verified by a reliable source. I have added wording to this effect[5] now that these issues have been clarified. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

A list needs a definition to avoid indiscriminate info, that's fine, but as I've outlined above, the definition could be a single source that explicitly lists these, or could be from many sources that assert explicit membership in the list class, but in this case it is not the list itself as being sourced. One example of the latter is List of commercial failures in video gaming; there is no single source that can define that as a list topic (though there is the consideration that there are commercial failures in video game industry via sources), but it a list that can be populated by many sources that assert the entries within it as "commercial failures" (thus avoiding any subjective inclusion on this list). Again, we need a well-defined list inclusion metric to avoid indiscriminate inclusion, but that definition need not be sourced itself. --MASEM (t) 20:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. As long as there's a sufficiently objective way to define how the list is populated, there should be no requirement that we may only copy lists that other people have created.--Father Goose (talk) 07:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

So we are agreed (a) a list needs a defintion, and (b) the definition needs to be sourced. Now we just need to agree whether the defintion needs to come from one or more (1) reliable sources, or (2) questionable sources. Which would you choose? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If I had my druthers, I'd settle the matter through consensus, on a list-by-list basis, in a way that is consistent with our existing policies (primarily WP:V and WP:OR). I also agree with the general principle that we don't do "lists of anything and everything" (WP:NOTDIR), though the specifics of that policy don't quite accurately capture what we do and don't accept, and why.

These words you keep suggesting, "a definition for their subject matter", are too vague for me to embrace. Can you point to a specific list you'd want to get rid of or otherwise reform, and why?--Father Goose (talk) 09:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If you go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Lists/archive and examine all the lists that have been deleted, you will see that none of them have a verifiable defintion that provides a rationale for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of monsters might be a good starting point. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Logic fallacy. Yes, many lists where the definition is not defined by a source are listed there, but that does not imply that "lists without a source definition are deleted". There's also lists there that I see that would have sourced definitions that are deleted too. The most common reason behind the list deletions (on a spot check) is indiscriminate collections (whether single-sourced, built from a multitude of sources, or such not sourced well at all). If the list contents are not explicitly outlined by one or a handful of sources, and instead built up from individual sources that assert membership into the list, then we need to assure that the list concept itself is not indiscriminate, which can be supported with sources. (eg in the commercial failures of video gaming above, the idea that there are commercial video game failures, and about what %ages of games do fail, etc. are described in the lede as to justify the significance of the list). Another example is that list of 40-pt games by Kobe Bryant, which had two problems: the 40-pt was an arbitrary barrier, and limiting it to just Kobe's games was also arbitrary; it seemed before closure that a better list, based on a list of X-pt games by a single player in the NBA (where X-pt was shown by sources to be a significant milestone for a player) would be a more appropriate list. Would this list be sourced to a single source? Doubtful based on how the Kobe list had to be sourced, but it would still be possible to demonstrate the inclusion of each individual game via a source. --MASEM (t) 14:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see any fallacy, logical or otherise. If a list is not defined, surely there is no evidence to disprove the accusation that its content is an indiscriminate collection of loosely assoicatied topics as you describe? The point I am making is that a list cannot be defined by its name alone, as that would be self-referencing. A defintion has to be explicity stated and it needs to be verifiable. You have seen my comments at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of forty-plus point games by Kobe Bryant/archive1, so you should know this article did not get promoted to Featured list status because its defintion could not be verified. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That list failed not because the list lacked a source definition, but instead it failed because it was considered the definition was indiscriminate. Now, one reason for its indiscriminate nature was the fact that the 40-pt cutoff seemed arbitrary and that itself was not backed by sources - what is the significance of a single player making 40 pts within a game?

Wikipedia editors can come to a consensus to create a list topic that itself may not be defined explicitly in a source, but has a hard definition that requirements membership by a source, as long as the topic and list itself are not indiscriminate themselves; those last parts will be subject to the consensus of the community, and as you've pointed out, several do end up in the pile of deleted lists from AFD. But not all such lists are deleted, which means that as long as the list definition is clear and discriminate and proving membership in the list can be asserted by sources, there is allowances for lists where the definition is not explicitly defined in a source. That's the benefit of community-driven editing in Wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 17:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the nominaiton was declined because it lacked a verifiable definition. If a 40-pt cutoff seemed arbitrary, it was because it did not have any external validation, it was plucked out of the air. All content in Wikipedia should be verfiable, and lists are not exempt from this requirement, or any other Wikipedia content policy. This is why lists should have a verifiable definition as WP:V is consensus. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The last statement made by the closer stated: "the concept of a list with a seemingly "arbitrary" inclusion criteria does not have consensus" as the reason to close. Nothing exacting verification, though having a source to help assure that 40-pt wasn't arbitrary would have been helpful, but this was also on top of the fact of why it was simply limited to Kobe. We need a clear list definition and if it does bring in some "level" like 40-pt games, that likely needs to have some justification (itself through verification), but the implication you're asking for is that the entire definition of the list be defined by sources is excessive and beyond practice. For example, while overly indiscriminate, a "List of NBA games played by Kobe Bryant" would not need a sourced definition of what a "NBA game" is, as that's rather obvious. Unfortunately, this is tying a lot to the same arguments you're using on the climate change naming issues, and there is a lot of things I just need to defer to what others have said there about the ability of WP editors to do a limited but reasonable amount of synthesis to construct meaningful articles titles, or in this case, list definitions, to proceed forward, instead of having to have sources for these. --MASEM (t) 14:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

By what metric is this requirement "excessive and beyond practice"? We know that lists are governed by Wikipedia's content policies like any other type of article. I think you have to agree that in the above example, the 40-pt cut off may not be arbitary in the sense that an editor chose it in good faith, but the editor's opinions that 40-pts was the right choice of number were not verifiable.
For a list to have a verifiable definition is not rocket science, and is certainly not beyond practise. The fact that reliable sources are required by all of Wikipedia's content polices applies to lists articles as well as standalone lists. If a list has a name that defines it, then getting verification of that definition is simply best practices as set out in WP:BURDEN. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. List articles are not standard articles. Lists are navigational helps, just like categories, navboxes or infoboxes. Therefore their existence and structure is not a matter of the list already existing somewhere else, it is a matter of our internal editorial judgement. Therefore I agree with Masem, that the implication you're asking for is that the entire definition of the list be defined by sources is excessive and beyond practice. Therefore, given a definition X for a list, and given an item I, if there are sources that confirm that I satisfies X and if I is notable, no problem. --Cyclopia^talk 17:59, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This guideline clearly states the opposite: Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles; thus, they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research and neutral point of view. They are navigational aids, but this doesn't mean that they are exempt from the original research policy, notability guidelines, etc. ThemFromSpace 02:11, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability is not a content guideline (in fact, it specifically notes it does not guide article content). Furthermore, notability only guides topics, not articles. That still means that lists should be present to support notable if they themselves are not notable, and not simply indiscriminate inclusion. --MASEM (t) 02:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not arguing for stand-alone lists to contain OR, inverifiable or non-neutral information, or anything against policy. But this doesn't change the fact that lists are navigational aids, and we're not required that other similar navigational aids already exist elsewhere, as Gavin Collins seems to imply. --Cyclopia^talk 09:26, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI, there is currently an RFC on the notability of lists at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Inclusion criteria for Lists. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:56, 23 August 2010 (UTC)