![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
My vantage point comes from a recent spree of cleaning up red links. They're saying "red links are acceptable". I'm thinking " 3RR". Ha!
WP:CSC says:
Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia.
Red-linked entries are acceptable 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.This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of discernment.
But then it also says
"Creation guide" lists—lists devoted to a large number of redlinked (unwritten) articles—don't belong in the main namespace.
The discrepancy arises from another kind of list article, the subject outline. I'm thinking there are two kinds of red links, and there is another kind of judgement involved in the other kind of red link that is scoping subjects, and this is the essence of red links: a red link found in an article that is reflecting a missing item in a hierarchical subject outline contains that "acceptable" essence, whereas the red link in other stand-alone lists contains little more than redness. Sometimes the redness is not very acceptable.
There is in fact significant occurrence of "unacceptable" red links. And they're being supported by the sentence I struck out. Supporting them as "acceptable" goes against the Category:Wikipedia red link cleanup because the context of this section of the style manual is the same as the context of the cleanup template, which is that of stand-alone lists. Of course the cleanup template could be applied to red links that are not in stand alone lists. But this almost never happens (in the category). Subject outlines don't tolerate red links in themselves for long.
The discrepancy supports edit warring over cleanup templates. I hope to achieve a better, overall understanding, hence the length. (Sorry. You can get the gist from the one paragraph in bold lettering.) While the MoS keeps the struck-out text in that place, it will muck up 3RR queues.
The judgment on red link inclusion can be simplified: when it comes to red/blue links reducing readability, the judgment, esp. when there is an aging red-link cleanup template, is against overlinking (stale red links). I don't think "acceptable" is the right word because it implies that there was a reason found in a debate for accepting red links, and to accept that. But there is no reasoning left to do for any kinds of red linking. There are two kinds of red links, one inarguably unacceptable, and one inarguably acceptable (as I will show). In neither case would "acceptable" be the right word unless there was a reason for the acceptance, unless the reason came from a judgment, where "judgement" in our context means a non-trivial hearing, such as in 3RR or AfD resolutions of "acceptableness". Red links in a stand-alone list is a trivial matter that should not be heard in 3RR battles involving a red-link cleanup template. I don't see much of a battle against my unwording that sentence. I've thought it through to close the case here and now. Here it is.
Although tradition does without them, there are now two reasons for red links, 1) as an editor prerogative, timing the arrival of new articles on the wiki, and 2) as a subject outline indicator, scoping the content in an article. The former is not necessarily acceptable after a time, and the latter is what is here found to be an acceptable use of a red link as the semi-permanent establishment of a subject outline in competition with other encyclopedias.
The unacceptable kind of red link is from an over-zealous editor making too numerous decrees, and is so "not acceptable" that there will always exist the corresponding cleanup template. Too much zeal lands in 3RR. Where every item in a list is bonified as an article, saying there "this black text should be blue, so I'll make it red to indicate that" carries little truck. Think about that. There could be seen no red links if the same editor (who knew both of the subject, and the subject inside and out) would just create the article. This type of red linking is tag-team editing, which is fine when the team plays well, but not if if the "team" is in a multiple-personality disorder. Although this is rarely ever an unacceptable kind of red link, neither is it acceptable at all times, so I struck it out in the rewording above. When it is no longer "acceptable" for red links to remain overlinking a list article, there is no debate. There is no "acceptable compromise" arising from a hearing except to say "pick one or two to be red, not all of them". Editor prerogatives lose by WP:NOT and the admin fiat from an aging cleanup template decree. (Nor do I expect to see too much debate concerning the other kind of red link. It will stay red, in one form or another, until it is in another form, red.) "Acceptable" sounds as if negotiations were had. They weren't really had. There really are none to be had, and there are no debates about negotiability, there is only inarguability, as I am proving. Overlinking red link is fair game for removal of the redness in the "link", returning it to black, which is a black "link" equivalence, by virtue of being on a stand-alone list. In the 3RR game, where 100% removal results in 100% restoral (of the overlinking of red links), the game ends in the loss of 100% red-not-black links every time, hands down. Even if exceptions are made for a few articles, those articles might sit with a cleanup tag, which is hardly acceptable because, well it's not well, because WP is not an anarchy.
If "this is a notable subject the encyclopedia needs" is information that both a list and a red link signify, why even one red link on the stand-along list? If none exist in the stand-alone list, then what are red links for? I believe an application of red links was found that contains more intelligence, and that is the intelligence implicit in a wikifiable subject outline. That subject outline is somewhere else, just as is the cite of a list item, red or black, is somewhere else when not yet existent in the references section. The subject outline is more widely available because publishable on Wikipedia proper, and thus has more potential intelligence than what appears to be haphazard "timing prerogatives" or random "timing prerogatives" or just general pushiness to the readership. A red link that is scoping a subject is just awesome to the general audience, highly acceptable, while "hearing" editor A telling editor B "time to edit red snow" for timing reasons is hardly acceptable (but not unacceptable), being almost a violation of WP:Self reference. Seeing 100% red links where seeing 100% black "links" would be entirely equivalent to the reader, carries for me no good reason, is not in good standing, misunderstands red links, and lapses on the readership-orientation mandates of Wikipedia. When "ownership" will overproduce redlinks then defend overlinking, then may those not rightly be 100% undone via the counter-fiat of an aging cleanup template? Or else which random red links might be left by a cleanup from an outsider? None. A few left might be chosen by an insider-defender, if any, but any wholesale defense carries little truck.
It is worth noting that the subject outline, if it is documented, does not tolerate red links well in itself, but it expects the corresponding link in the article are red, thus bringing the map to the adventurer, and finding best use of red link. An acceptable use of red links is where they can represent subject outlines. You don't touch such red links, like you don't touch category trees— unless "you da man" who specializes in that. There exist young MediaWiki wikies with copious red link in the articulation. The "hierarchical subject outline" kind of red link is not even stylistically limitable. There is no style guide debate possible that would precisely limit, as a definite percentage of such prose, any creative red linking: there are no limits to subjects (and thus their discussions concerning their relevance). It can be 1%, 10%, 20%! and no cleanup template could suggest its dating. That is the "acceptable" kind of red link, whose acceptance is remains largely unquestioned until a better organization arrives. This other kind of red link is acceptable because desirable as a no-pressure "to do" that is based more on knowledge and less on opinions about how to be hasty.
The term "acceptable" was used probably because a specific number cannot be found for red links in a stand alone list. Thus the exceptions that are the red links in the stand-alone lists are "temporarily acceptable". This is understood, but not stated clearly enough in the MoS. Such red links are acceptable only until they become "unacceptable", when holds are barred on them. The number of stylistically acceptable red links on stand alone lists might depend on the number of team members, hotness of the article subject, etc. Reorganizing a list article's red linked list items would shift red links from one list item to another. Many of the worst lists on Wikipedia are overlinked with red links, producing lists that are too red "to be useful to readers". Because such lists are 100% blue linkable, all black "links" are red in theory. Thus such lists need not contain red links, except when an editor is guiding other editors at the expense of the readers. "The best lists on Wikipedia", for example, Timeline of ancient history need display no red link, and so the struck sentence was problematic in its context because Timeline of ancient history is a list article that would probably not "accept" red links.
Because overlinked red link articles seem pushy and religious, sporting, and political, the wording that they are "acceptable" seems a red herring. It implies a debate was won for red links as "editor timing prerogatives". It wasn't: they are barely tolerated because not best practice. It is esp. not debatable when the cleanup templates appear. Yet they will debate and debate thinking "all's fair in love and war", and they'd be right.... Hey, let's take away that sentence I pointed out, and leave the other one ruling that "a large number" of red links don't belong. — Cpiral Cpiral 00:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Just as users should not insert red links unless they are reasonably certain we can have an article on that specific topic, you should not remove a red link unless you are reasonably certain we CANNOT have an article on that specific topic. Mass removal of redlinks is, in nearly all cases, destructive editing. The main exceptions are, of course, AfD cleanup, spam, and if they were recently mass-inserted in a similarly haphazard manner. -- erachima talk 07:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Honestly Cpiral, I'm sensing a general lack of clue here, and with the way you write you'll probably not win many people over if you're dragged off to one of the Drama pages to argue the point. So, again, when in doubt, don't delink stuff. -- erachima talk 04:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
A lot of list articles are being made despite that their better off as categories. And this is mainly pertaining to fiction such as List of fictional Jews or List of LGBT characters in film, animation, written fiction, video games, television and radio, List of multimedia franchises
Now just to assure anyone who has bad-faith, I'm no nazi and I definitely fall in LGBT. But to me, these type of lists seem to just be there for fan readers who want to look up these characters. To me, its like trying to list every book out there. For example: LGBT fictional characters also fall into LGBT genre, such as yaoi and yuri (japanese genres for gay and lesbian). So it seems to defeat the purpose of making such a list if its already a genre. The LGBT wikiproject had made it so that their inclusion is by series that have articles on them. In which seems to me like their trying to put a loophoole.
I personally have don't any specific interests in jews, so personally I don't see what merits it is to have a list of fictional jewish characters. Its like looking for list of fictional catholics, list of fictional wiccans. Etc.
Shouldn't we find ways to make the criteria more strict. Lucia Black ( talk) 18:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
One of the common selection criteria mentioned is "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria", with an explanation, "These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of minor characters in Dilbert or List of paracetamol brand names." Better examples may be needed, as the first contains at least two entries that meet notability criteria, and the second isn't a stand-alone list. I also suggest removing "most or" as that contradicts the criterion. Peter James ( talk) 16:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
No need for notability? So anyone can add their company to a list if it's relevant? If this is so, we can't stop people from advertising their company on lists (with presumably a link to their company to prove it exists). Dougweller ( talk) 17:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Please refer to an RfC at Category talk:Filmographies#Naming of articles about an actor's roles and awards, which refers to this guideline (specifically WP:NCLIST). — sroc 💬 14:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
The very top of this guideline says:
Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not, as well as the notability guidelines.
Then here is the entirety of the section "Lists of lists":
Wikipedia has many list of lists articles. On lists of lists, nonexistent lists should not be included. That is, all the links in a "lists of lists" should be active (blue, not red). Lists of lists should also be available as alphabetical categories. Put lists that have actual content in one of the subcategories under Category:Lists.
I can't seem to find anything that says lists of lists should be held to a different standard. Since they're in the article namespace and not a disambiguation page, don't all lists of lists have to satisfy (among other things) notability as stated at the top? (Demonstrating that the set of lists is talked about as a group -- the lists talked about as a group -- in reliable secondary sources?) Is this an exception to notability is not inherited? Maybe I'm just not searching correctly for the right page explaining this... --— Rhododendrites talk | 14:34, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I have suggested this before, but perhaps it is time to suggest it again. We need to more clearly differentiate between "Informational lists" (pages that are intended to convey information - which I think we all agree are articles that happen to take a listified format, and thus subject to all the policies and guidelines that affect other articles), and "Navigational lists" (pages that do not convey information and are there purely to help readers find articles). To my mind the best way to differentiate these two kinds of pages is to use two different words to describe them. My suggestion is that the purely Navigational lists be renamed... replacing the word "List" and using the words "Index" ... to give an example: Index of bio articles (hockey players) or Index of articles about US National Parks. Blueboar ( talk) 14:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
notability /stand-alone requirements aren't needed to be shownas long as the navigational list is a
natural grouping. Who then decides what's a natural grouping? What policies do still apply? Maybe it would help me to understand if anyone knew of good examples of Lists of lists that were deleted via AfD? --— Rhododendrites talk | 14:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I know a portal is a different animal, but I included it here because it does seem to cover a lot of the same ground. If the proposal in the section below is implemented, the Lists... article would be renamed to Index... but in this case both exist...and an outline. How do outlines fit in? --— Rhododendrites talk | 19:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
It mentions reliable sources, but shouldn't we specify that those sources must be referenced in the list? Too often it seems to be assumed that a linked article is sufficient. Dougweller ( talk) 18:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I recently edited the second point in the section on Common selection criteria (my additon in bold)
My addition has been reverted by Dkriegls with the comment: "That's just simply not consensus. There are a lot of categorical reasons to create stand alones that have nothing to do with length."
Based upon previous discussions, I think my addition likely does have consensus. However it was a bold edit, and as such I respect Dkriegls right to revert it... the next step (in accordance with WP:BRD) is to discuss and find out whether it has consensus or not.
My intent was not to disallow stand alone lists where every entry in the list fails notability... but to discourage them. I feel that best practice is to place such lists within the context of their parent articles whenever possible. Please discuss so we can determine consensus.
Blueboar (
talk)
13:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
There is a discussion about the naming of lists at Talk:List of French classical composers (chronological), requesting a move to Chronological list of French classical composers. Please feel free to participate. Dekimasu よ! 21:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
My vantage point comes from a recent spree of cleaning up red links. They're saying "red links are acceptable". I'm thinking " 3RR". Ha!
WP:CSC says:
Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia.
Red-linked entries are acceptable 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.This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of discernment.
But then it also says
"Creation guide" lists—lists devoted to a large number of redlinked (unwritten) articles—don't belong in the main namespace.
The discrepancy arises from another kind of list article, the subject outline. I'm thinking there are two kinds of red links, and there is another kind of judgement involved in the other kind of red link that is scoping subjects, and this is the essence of red links: a red link found in an article that is reflecting a missing item in a hierarchical subject outline contains that "acceptable" essence, whereas the red link in other stand-alone lists contains little more than redness. Sometimes the redness is not very acceptable.
There is in fact significant occurrence of "unacceptable" red links. And they're being supported by the sentence I struck out. Supporting them as "acceptable" goes against the Category:Wikipedia red link cleanup because the context of this section of the style manual is the same as the context of the cleanup template, which is that of stand-alone lists. Of course the cleanup template could be applied to red links that are not in stand alone lists. But this almost never happens (in the category). Subject outlines don't tolerate red links in themselves for long.
The discrepancy supports edit warring over cleanup templates. I hope to achieve a better, overall understanding, hence the length. (Sorry. You can get the gist from the one paragraph in bold lettering.) While the MoS keeps the struck-out text in that place, it will muck up 3RR queues.
The judgment on red link inclusion can be simplified: when it comes to red/blue links reducing readability, the judgment, esp. when there is an aging red-link cleanup template, is against overlinking (stale red links). I don't think "acceptable" is the right word because it implies that there was a reason found in a debate for accepting red links, and to accept that. But there is no reasoning left to do for any kinds of red linking. There are two kinds of red links, one inarguably unacceptable, and one inarguably acceptable (as I will show). In neither case would "acceptable" be the right word unless there was a reason for the acceptance, unless the reason came from a judgment, where "judgement" in our context means a non-trivial hearing, such as in 3RR or AfD resolutions of "acceptableness". Red links in a stand-alone list is a trivial matter that should not be heard in 3RR battles involving a red-link cleanup template. I don't see much of a battle against my unwording that sentence. I've thought it through to close the case here and now. Here it is.
Although tradition does without them, there are now two reasons for red links, 1) as an editor prerogative, timing the arrival of new articles on the wiki, and 2) as a subject outline indicator, scoping the content in an article. The former is not necessarily acceptable after a time, and the latter is what is here found to be an acceptable use of a red link as the semi-permanent establishment of a subject outline in competition with other encyclopedias.
The unacceptable kind of red link is from an over-zealous editor making too numerous decrees, and is so "not acceptable" that there will always exist the corresponding cleanup template. Too much zeal lands in 3RR. Where every item in a list is bonified as an article, saying there "this black text should be blue, so I'll make it red to indicate that" carries little truck. Think about that. There could be seen no red links if the same editor (who knew both of the subject, and the subject inside and out) would just create the article. This type of red linking is tag-team editing, which is fine when the team plays well, but not if if the "team" is in a multiple-personality disorder. Although this is rarely ever an unacceptable kind of red link, neither is it acceptable at all times, so I struck it out in the rewording above. When it is no longer "acceptable" for red links to remain overlinking a list article, there is no debate. There is no "acceptable compromise" arising from a hearing except to say "pick one or two to be red, not all of them". Editor prerogatives lose by WP:NOT and the admin fiat from an aging cleanup template decree. (Nor do I expect to see too much debate concerning the other kind of red link. It will stay red, in one form or another, until it is in another form, red.) "Acceptable" sounds as if negotiations were had. They weren't really had. There really are none to be had, and there are no debates about negotiability, there is only inarguability, as I am proving. Overlinking red link is fair game for removal of the redness in the "link", returning it to black, which is a black "link" equivalence, by virtue of being on a stand-alone list. In the 3RR game, where 100% removal results in 100% restoral (of the overlinking of red links), the game ends in the loss of 100% red-not-black links every time, hands down. Even if exceptions are made for a few articles, those articles might sit with a cleanup tag, which is hardly acceptable because, well it's not well, because WP is not an anarchy.
If "this is a notable subject the encyclopedia needs" is information that both a list and a red link signify, why even one red link on the stand-along list? If none exist in the stand-alone list, then what are red links for? I believe an application of red links was found that contains more intelligence, and that is the intelligence implicit in a wikifiable subject outline. That subject outline is somewhere else, just as is the cite of a list item, red or black, is somewhere else when not yet existent in the references section. The subject outline is more widely available because publishable on Wikipedia proper, and thus has more potential intelligence than what appears to be haphazard "timing prerogatives" or random "timing prerogatives" or just general pushiness to the readership. A red link that is scoping a subject is just awesome to the general audience, highly acceptable, while "hearing" editor A telling editor B "time to edit red snow" for timing reasons is hardly acceptable (but not unacceptable), being almost a violation of WP:Self reference. Seeing 100% red links where seeing 100% black "links" would be entirely equivalent to the reader, carries for me no good reason, is not in good standing, misunderstands red links, and lapses on the readership-orientation mandates of Wikipedia. When "ownership" will overproduce redlinks then defend overlinking, then may those not rightly be 100% undone via the counter-fiat of an aging cleanup template? Or else which random red links might be left by a cleanup from an outsider? None. A few left might be chosen by an insider-defender, if any, but any wholesale defense carries little truck.
It is worth noting that the subject outline, if it is documented, does not tolerate red links well in itself, but it expects the corresponding link in the article are red, thus bringing the map to the adventurer, and finding best use of red link. An acceptable use of red links is where they can represent subject outlines. You don't touch such red links, like you don't touch category trees— unless "you da man" who specializes in that. There exist young MediaWiki wikies with copious red link in the articulation. The "hierarchical subject outline" kind of red link is not even stylistically limitable. There is no style guide debate possible that would precisely limit, as a definite percentage of such prose, any creative red linking: there are no limits to subjects (and thus their discussions concerning their relevance). It can be 1%, 10%, 20%! and no cleanup template could suggest its dating. That is the "acceptable" kind of red link, whose acceptance is remains largely unquestioned until a better organization arrives. This other kind of red link is acceptable because desirable as a no-pressure "to do" that is based more on knowledge and less on opinions about how to be hasty.
The term "acceptable" was used probably because a specific number cannot be found for red links in a stand alone list. Thus the exceptions that are the red links in the stand-alone lists are "temporarily acceptable". This is understood, but not stated clearly enough in the MoS. Such red links are acceptable only until they become "unacceptable", when holds are barred on them. The number of stylistically acceptable red links on stand alone lists might depend on the number of team members, hotness of the article subject, etc. Reorganizing a list article's red linked list items would shift red links from one list item to another. Many of the worst lists on Wikipedia are overlinked with red links, producing lists that are too red "to be useful to readers". Because such lists are 100% blue linkable, all black "links" are red in theory. Thus such lists need not contain red links, except when an editor is guiding other editors at the expense of the readers. "The best lists on Wikipedia", for example, Timeline of ancient history need display no red link, and so the struck sentence was problematic in its context because Timeline of ancient history is a list article that would probably not "accept" red links.
Because overlinked red link articles seem pushy and religious, sporting, and political, the wording that they are "acceptable" seems a red herring. It implies a debate was won for red links as "editor timing prerogatives". It wasn't: they are barely tolerated because not best practice. It is esp. not debatable when the cleanup templates appear. Yet they will debate and debate thinking "all's fair in love and war", and they'd be right.... Hey, let's take away that sentence I pointed out, and leave the other one ruling that "a large number" of red links don't belong. — Cpiral Cpiral 00:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Just as users should not insert red links unless they are reasonably certain we can have an article on that specific topic, you should not remove a red link unless you are reasonably certain we CANNOT have an article on that specific topic. Mass removal of redlinks is, in nearly all cases, destructive editing. The main exceptions are, of course, AfD cleanup, spam, and if they were recently mass-inserted in a similarly haphazard manner. -- erachima talk 07:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Honestly Cpiral, I'm sensing a general lack of clue here, and with the way you write you'll probably not win many people over if you're dragged off to one of the Drama pages to argue the point. So, again, when in doubt, don't delink stuff. -- erachima talk 04:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
A lot of list articles are being made despite that their better off as categories. And this is mainly pertaining to fiction such as List of fictional Jews or List of LGBT characters in film, animation, written fiction, video games, television and radio, List of multimedia franchises
Now just to assure anyone who has bad-faith, I'm no nazi and I definitely fall in LGBT. But to me, these type of lists seem to just be there for fan readers who want to look up these characters. To me, its like trying to list every book out there. For example: LGBT fictional characters also fall into LGBT genre, such as yaoi and yuri (japanese genres for gay and lesbian). So it seems to defeat the purpose of making such a list if its already a genre. The LGBT wikiproject had made it so that their inclusion is by series that have articles on them. In which seems to me like their trying to put a loophoole.
I personally have don't any specific interests in jews, so personally I don't see what merits it is to have a list of fictional jewish characters. Its like looking for list of fictional catholics, list of fictional wiccans. Etc.
Shouldn't we find ways to make the criteria more strict. Lucia Black ( talk) 18:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
One of the common selection criteria mentioned is "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria", with an explanation, "These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of minor characters in Dilbert or List of paracetamol brand names." Better examples may be needed, as the first contains at least two entries that meet notability criteria, and the second isn't a stand-alone list. I also suggest removing "most or" as that contradicts the criterion. Peter James ( talk) 16:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
No need for notability? So anyone can add their company to a list if it's relevant? If this is so, we can't stop people from advertising their company on lists (with presumably a link to their company to prove it exists). Dougweller ( talk) 17:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Please refer to an RfC at Category talk:Filmographies#Naming of articles about an actor's roles and awards, which refers to this guideline (specifically WP:NCLIST). — sroc 💬 14:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
The very top of this guideline says:
Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not, as well as the notability guidelines.
Then here is the entirety of the section "Lists of lists":
Wikipedia has many list of lists articles. On lists of lists, nonexistent lists should not be included. That is, all the links in a "lists of lists" should be active (blue, not red). Lists of lists should also be available as alphabetical categories. Put lists that have actual content in one of the subcategories under Category:Lists.
I can't seem to find anything that says lists of lists should be held to a different standard. Since they're in the article namespace and not a disambiguation page, don't all lists of lists have to satisfy (among other things) notability as stated at the top? (Demonstrating that the set of lists is talked about as a group -- the lists talked about as a group -- in reliable secondary sources?) Is this an exception to notability is not inherited? Maybe I'm just not searching correctly for the right page explaining this... --— Rhododendrites talk | 14:34, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I have suggested this before, but perhaps it is time to suggest it again. We need to more clearly differentiate between "Informational lists" (pages that are intended to convey information - which I think we all agree are articles that happen to take a listified format, and thus subject to all the policies and guidelines that affect other articles), and "Navigational lists" (pages that do not convey information and are there purely to help readers find articles). To my mind the best way to differentiate these two kinds of pages is to use two different words to describe them. My suggestion is that the purely Navigational lists be renamed... replacing the word "List" and using the words "Index" ... to give an example: Index of bio articles (hockey players) or Index of articles about US National Parks. Blueboar ( talk) 14:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
notability /stand-alone requirements aren't needed to be shownas long as the navigational list is a
natural grouping. Who then decides what's a natural grouping? What policies do still apply? Maybe it would help me to understand if anyone knew of good examples of Lists of lists that were deleted via AfD? --— Rhododendrites talk | 14:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I know a portal is a different animal, but I included it here because it does seem to cover a lot of the same ground. If the proposal in the section below is implemented, the Lists... article would be renamed to Index... but in this case both exist...and an outline. How do outlines fit in? --— Rhododendrites talk | 19:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
It mentions reliable sources, but shouldn't we specify that those sources must be referenced in the list? Too often it seems to be assumed that a linked article is sufficient. Dougweller ( talk) 18:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I recently edited the second point in the section on Common selection criteria (my additon in bold)
My addition has been reverted by Dkriegls with the comment: "That's just simply not consensus. There are a lot of categorical reasons to create stand alones that have nothing to do with length."
Based upon previous discussions, I think my addition likely does have consensus. However it was a bold edit, and as such I respect Dkriegls right to revert it... the next step (in accordance with WP:BRD) is to discuss and find out whether it has consensus or not.
My intent was not to disallow stand alone lists where every entry in the list fails notability... but to discourage them. I feel that best practice is to place such lists within the context of their parent articles whenever possible. Please discuss so we can determine consensus.
Blueboar (
talk)
13:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
There is a discussion about the naming of lists at Talk:List of French classical composers (chronological), requesting a move to Chronological list of French classical composers. Please feel free to participate. Dekimasu よ! 21:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)