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Please add any changes or additions anyone would like concerning this topic.
Instead of creating multiple guidelines dealing with essentially the same subject, why don't you expand Wikipedia:Overcategorization by adding a section specific to lists, and maybe consequently change the title of the guideline. CG 21:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
In my view, lists and categories are sufficiently different that you shouldn't merge any "over-" guidelines. The same argument would apply to merging Wikipedia:List guideline and Wikipedia:Categorization. If you see why those two pages shouldn't be merged, then the same applies here. Carcharoth 17:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The overcategorization guideline is based on the clear repeated precedents set at CFD. This guideline, if it is to exist, should be based on clear repeated precedents set at AFD. Examples of those discussions should be linked. Since there are already discussions about criteria for deleting articles, this guideline should address how those guidelines (NPOV, notability, etc...) apply to lists. I also hope that the standards for being an acceptable list are more liberal than those for the acceptability of a category. If there is to be a listing here it should be for lists that cannot be made acceptable, and not cite discussions where lists were removed because of other defects (like being unreferenced) -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
This page is an attempt to set guidelines favoring one particular outcome of debates about lists--the view of those people there who seem to dislike many lists. Their view often, but not always prevails, and I see this is an attempt to cast in stone their preferences, especially as it uses for examples some lists about which there was sharp disagreement. Guidelines such as these should be based upon a general consensus, not a possibly temporary victory on some examples. More specifically
Yes, this page is a good idea, but like WP:OCAT it should be based upon existing and accepted AFD outcomes. Incidentally you may want to borrow some of the wording from OCAT, in particular wrt arbitrary and unclear inclusion criteria. I'd suggest keeping the two pages separate, although they should cross-reference; for instance, OCAT mentions in several spots that a list is better for that kind of information. The best approach is to only make entries on this page for which you can find three or four semi-recent AFD debates that indeed favored deleting them. >Radiant< 15:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I added a bunch of real examples. I still need real example of Agenda-Oriented lists. So far I could only find a few without digging through the thousands of archives. Can anyone help? Bulldog123 04:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I hope we can discuss the distinctions between Lists and Categories. Considering the examples mentioned in the Wikipedia:Overlistification#Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists section, some of these were deleted because there was already a category. This seems backwards. It often makes more sense for these categories to be lists than vice versa. That is certainly the way many CFD discussions have gone. Take for example, LGBT composers. If someone sees that a composer was LGBT, and it is linked to a list, the list could discuss aspects of their sexuality and how it related to their lives as composers. If there is a significant connection between sexuality and being a composer, it would be a valid category. If the connection is tenuous, it might still be a good list. The criteria that we have worked out for categories requires the significant connection. I would say that the only requirement for a list is that the connection could reasonably be mentioned in the articles. In this way we would be saying that we are making editorial decisions about these connections. If the connection is trivial, it should be removed from the individual articles. If that is the case then the lists should also be deleted. So if we remove the fact that John Fooman likes fried chicken, we'd also remove the List of people who like fried chicken. If it alright to mention that actor John Fooman is a Morman, than it would be alright to have a List of Morman actors. If books are written and courses taught about Morman actors it would be alright to elevate the list to being a category.
So the big problem I'm having with this page is the underlying thinking behind deleting these lists. It would help if there was some consensus about why these lists need to be deleted. I don't see the consensus for a clear rationale in many of the AFD discussions. The burden of proof necessary for deleting any article should be that they are destructive to the project in some way. I don't see a consensus about how they are destructive. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
"If it alright to mention that actor John Fooman is a Morman, than it would be alright to have a List of Morman actors."
Since this guideline is proposing to tweak the Overcategorization guideline for use with lists, this guideline needs to be more integrated with Wikipedia:List guideline and Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists). Categories and lists are similar but separate beasts and this guideline needs to reflect that. As it states at Wikipedia:List guideline, lists have three main purposes: Information, Navigation, and Development.
This guideline doesn't reflect any of this and appears to being developed separately from the list guidelines, using only category specific info. That said, there are some good things in this proposed guideline. In particular, the Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists appears similar to what I've proposed at Wikipedia:Proposed guideline for lists of people by ethnicity, religion, and other cultural categorizations. Some tweaking of language would be needed, but the similarities are there.
Unfortunately, there is the appearance that this guideline is being created to bolster one side of the debate around the deletion of certain types of lists. I'm sure the same could be said for my proposed guideline. Perhaps we should try to fix this perception. As people may know, the guidelines and policies which succeed at Wikipedia tend to be the ones which reach consensus from people on both sides of a debate. Perhaps we should merge info from Wikipedia:Proposed guideline for lists of people by ethnicity, religion, and other cultural categorizations with this proposed guideline, bring in info from the current list guidelines, and see if we all can't reach a general consensus on this issue. Any thoughts on this from people?-- Alabamaboy 18:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok Bama, how is your proposal different? You seem to support the irrelevant intersections part, but I haven't seen that exemplified on some AFDs. Your posse seems to be in agreement but we need some type of specifics on what there is to merge. Bulldog123 03:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason for this proposal other than to provide ammunition to deletionists in AfD debates. First of all, it fails to give any reason why Wikipedia:Overcategorization should be tweaked and applied to lists. The overcategorization gives two compelling reasons for not creating certain types of categories, even when they meet the policies of verifiability and NPOV: "For lengthy articles, this could potentially result in hundreds of categories, most of which aren't particularly relevant. This may also make it more difficult to find any particular category for a specific article." Neither of these reasons apply to lists.
Further, the overcategorization page states that it is "based on existing guidelines and previous precedent at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion". This proposal, however, is based on a few AfD discussions, some of which resulted in no consensus, and some of which resulted in deletion " with no prejudice against sourced recreation." Some of these were deleted only after 2 or 3 nominations. This hardly indicates an overwhelming consensus that there is an "overlistification" problem that needs to be addressed with a new guideline. Some arguments to delete a list were based on the (IMO faulty) reason that the list would be better as a category, while completely ignoring the real overcategorization problem.
Lists, just like any other articles, must be verifiable, not based on personal research, and not promoting a particluar point-of-view. But this proposal goes beyond those policies and applies them in a POV-fashion toward a certain goal, which appears to be to simply reduce the number of lists in Wikipedia. For reasons unclear to me, certain people seem to be offended by the existence of certain types of lists.
This proposal seems to be based on the presumpions and personal opinions of the author. For example, it declares certain intesections are "irrelevant". It then goes on to correctly note that relevance should not be based on original research, but then imposes a higher standard than policy requires: "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested." The verifiablity policy requires only that sources be reliable, and notability guidelines say that coverage should be non-trivial and independent of the subject in order for there to be a separate article (or list in this case). But that is far from saying there must be a "reasonable amount" (whatever that means) of "solid, mainstream" (not just reliable) sources, and demanding a certain type of discussion about the intersection, not just non-trivial coverage.
"Catholic businesspersons", for example, is hardly an irrelevant intersection to Tom Monaghan [3] [4]? Note that there was a previous discussion about ethnicity/religion-profession intersection lists, and it failed to reach any sort of consensus back then, and I don't see any consensus now.
Many deletion debates seem to be simply based on subjective interpretions of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or Wikipedia is not a directory. This policy gives specific examples of "indiscriminate information" and "directories" but otherwise gives little guidance on how to objectively interpret these phrases in relation to anything that does not fall within those examples. One person's "indiscriminate list" or "directory" may be another's " verifiable, reliably sourced, neutral, informative, encyclopedic, navigation aid". These policies seem to conflict the most, and thus result in the most subjective debates, when it comes to lists.
Another example, songs about tequila was important enough to be the subject of an interview on CNN, or several pages in a book about country songs. And there is no shortage of reliable sources talking about celebrity pets.
Finally, what the proposal calls "over-extensive" lists seems to include Lists of topics and Lists of people, and every list linked on those pages. And the last comment, " Wikipedia is not paper but it is bytes" is completely meaningless; the policy itself states "there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content." Storage is essentially infinite for the purposes of Wikipedia (and if storage ever does become a problem, the Foundation will certainly do something about it). DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Further, the overcategorization page states that it is "based on existing guidelines and previous precedent at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion". This proposal, however, is based on a few AfD discussions, some of which resulted in no consensus, and some of which resulted in deletion " with no prejudice against sourced recreation." Some of these were deleted only after 2 or 3 nominations. This hardly indicates an overwhelming consensus that there is an "overlistification" problem that needs to be addressed with a new guideline. Some arguments to delete a list were based on the (IMO faulty) reason that the list would be better as a category, while completely ignoring the real overcategorization problem. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Lists, just like any other articles, must be verifiable, not based on personal research, and not promoting a particluar point-of-view. But this proposal goes beyond those policies and applies them in a POV-fashion toward a certain goal, which appears to be to simply reduce the number of lists in Wikipedia. For reasons unclear to me, certain people seem to be offended by the existence of certain types of lists. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
This proposal seems to be based on the presumpions and personal opinions of the author. For example, it declares certain intesections are "irrelevant". It then goes on to correctly note that relevance should not be based on original research, but then imposes a higher standard than policy requires: "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested." The verifiablity policy requires only that sources be reliable, and notability guidelines say that coverage should be non-trivial and independent of the subject in order for there to be a separate article (or list in this case). But that is far from saying there must be a "reasonable amount" (whatever that means) of "solid, mainstream" (not just reliable) sources, and demanding a certain type of discussion about the intersection, not just non-trivial coverage. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
"Catholic businesspersons", for example, is hardly an irrelevant intersection to Tom Monaghan [5] [6]? Note that there was a previous discussion about ethnicity/religion-profession intersection lists, and it failed to reach any sort of consensus back then, and I don't see any consensus now. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Many deletion debates seem to be simply based on subjective interpretions of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or Wikipedia is not a directory. This policy gives specific examples of "indiscriminate information" and "directories" but otherwise gives little guidance on how to objectively interpret these phrases in relation to anything that does not fall within those examples. One person's "indiscriminate list" or "directory" may be another's " verifiable, reliably sourced, neutral, informative, encyclopedic, navigation aid". These policies seem to conflict the most, and thus result in the most subjective debates, when it comes to lists. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Another example, songs about tequila was important enough to be the subject of an interview on CNN, or several pages in a book about country songs. And there is no shortage of reliable sources talking about celebrity pets. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Finally, what the proposal calls "over-extensive" lists seems to include Lists of topics and Lists of people, and every list linked on those pages. And the last comment, " Wikipedia is not paper but it is bytes" is completely meaningless; the policy itself states "there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content." Storage is essentially infinite for the purposes of Wikipedia (and if storage ever does become a problem, the Foundation will certainly do something about it). DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
No consensus is forming for this. It's just overly broad, has failed to state why it is important, and i just saw it cited as a reason to delete a list that was unanimously kept three months ago. If the list was unanimously kept three months ago then isn't it fairly obvious that there's no consensus for this policy based off of AFD? Finally, categories and lists just serve totally (and obviously) different functions; there's just no good reason given here that isn't already given at WP:LIST and indeed it should never have been a fork of the list guideline. -- JayHenry 05:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe that this list cannot be salvaged into something that would be useful for the project. I am sorry and I don't mean this as a personal attack or as revenge for a few deletions I would have voted differently about. I don't think there's any way to move forward and I don't think this is an appropriate way to amend list guidelines. -- JayHenry 16:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It's hard to format responses in bullets like this. But associate number with number:
I think it is time to tag this with {{ rejected}}. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 20:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I find it unacceptable to refer to this proposal as a basis for non-notability of articles. I don't understand why this proposal was submitted shortly before the List of journalists killed in Russia was filed for deletion. The Wikipedia:Categorization of people guideline allows for intersections of occupation and residence categories such as "Journalists" & "Russian". I don't think intersecting that with the "Murdered" category will make the sub-category non-notable. I can't find a matching example in Wikipedia:Overcategorization. ilgiz 01:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm converting this from a proposal to an essay. However, I do very much want other people to contribute to this essay, whether it be deleting or adding material, because I don't want it to just be seen as a deletionist standpoint. Thanks to Sam, JayHenry, and DHowell for being thorough commenters. Please do consider implementing revisions. Bulldog123 21:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a bit of controversy at the moment about such articles as List of Rajputs and List of Poles. What do we think, would this be better represented as a category, or as a list, or both? Perhaps we can add something to either this page or OCAT. >Radiant< 11:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Tweaking the overcategorization guideline to apply it to lists doesn't make any sense. As WP:OC says in its introduction,
That is the only reason to avoid overcategorization given in the guideline. It is a practical reason, based on the limitations of the software. If we could display arbitrary intersections in a usable way, they would actually help rather than hinder the navigation and usefulness of the project. But as it is, adding too many categories result in a cluttered and nearly-useless footer at the bottom of the page.
The reason above does not apply to lists. Inclusion in a list article does not clutter any other articles, as the only effect shows up in the "What links here" tool, which is very minor. Lists can be useful for navigation. I don't know where people get the idea that every single page on Wikipedia has to be "encyclopedic" (whatever that means), when it is quite obvious that we do have many pages that are not encyclopedia articles but just navigational aids (think about disambiguation pages, for example). Lists can also be seen as navigational aids, similar to categories but without some of the limitations of categories. -- Itub 12:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
While I do support WP:OCAT, I don't support this Overlistification proposal in its current form. Here are some of my problems with it:
- The proposal appears to imply that "tweaking" the category guidelines should apply to lists. However categories intentionally are supposed to have a higher barrier against creation than lists because a bad category can affect a hundred articles while a bad list is just a single bad article. Valid categories generally make for valid lists, but not all valid lists make for valid categories. So the restrictions on creating lists are intentionally looser than the restrictions on creating categories.
- In the section "Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists", the proposal says that "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested, for it to have some notability as an intersection. The existence of the intersection outside of wikipedia is not proof enough that it is a notable intersection." I actually am not sure I entirely believe that statement is true. That's because lists serve dual purposes. One is to present a combination of entries to inform the reader on a broader topic. The other, though, is to serve as search indices for related articles on a topic, much like categories serve as search indices for their articles.
It is quite possible, I think, for a list to serve a useful function as a navigational list for the reader without the "overall topic" of the list being specifically notable. There are probably useful ways of organizing navigational hub articles within broad topics that haven't been discussed, and these hubs do not always constitute original research since they do not necessarilly constitute an original opinion or rely on primary sources for their reliability.
Therefore I don't currently accept the general notion that overall list topics need to have been thoroughly discussed by outside publications. Rather, the list needs to be properly referenced, having an easily and objectively determinable inclusion criteria (to avoid the list actually being original research) and serve some sort of useful function for readers on the topic.
- Under "Trivia/Trivial lists", the section says that "This is essentially expanding upon what wikipedia is not: an indiscriminate collection of information." That is an incorrect statement because WP:IINFO does not deal with trivia at all. The word trivia doesn't even appear in the section, and that is intentional. Rather, IINFO is the catch-all for WP:NOT that includes various specific types of information which Wikipedia can discriminate against.
Now that being said, there is a proposal on the WP:NOT page to introduce a new section to WP:NOT that outlines what the five pillars mean when they say "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection." There is also the "Not a directory of loosely associated facts" section that is sometimes relevant to trivia lists. And there's also WP:TRIVIA as a style guide. So my advice would be that if you want to mention trivia at all you should reference any or all of those sections and not "indiscriminate collection of information".
- In "Over-extensive Lists" the section appears to contradict itself by saying that "When a list is prone to having many listees that can never have an article written about them, or that simply fail notability, the list can usually be deemed as over-extensive and would probably function better as a category." The problem with that statement is that clearly if a large number of entries on a list don't have articles then you can't use a category for it because the category will be missing a large number of entries.
It is quite possible for a list to contain both a mix of entries which have their own separate articles and entries which do not have their own articles. For example, I think the odds are good that many song lists will contain songs that do not have their own articles but that, in order to be complete, those songs must be included in the list. Similarly not all sporting events have their own article, but it's quite possible to have lists of related events within a season or for a team or player which is a necessary data adjunct to a discussion on the topic. Even with non-notable entries, though, the list as a whole can still serve a useful navigational or informative purpose for readers on the topic, especially when it contains at least some notable entries with their own articles.
So in summary I can't support this proposal as written, and even possibly as it is currently intended to function. It would take a serious rewrite for me to consider this as a guideline. Dugwiki 15:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
It would seem to me (in looking over the discussion examples) that all but one of the entries on this page are essentially saying the same thing:
The other entry concerns "trivia", which is, of course, subjective anyway. (Which is also explained more clearly in other guidelines, style guides, and the like.)
It would seem to me that, since this is merely 2 ideas, that the two ideas be merged to some more appropriate page (for ease of reference, at least). For example, the essays Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Listcruft seem to cover similar perspectives.
Or as an alternative, remove the trivia entry (or merge it elsewhere), and refactor this page to be about:
This could be clearer, cleaner, and likely be less controverial that way. - jc37 18:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
{{ RFCpolicy }} I see that this proposed, and possibly unfinished page has been worked on by basically a single editor, who contributed extensively in June, not so much in July, and whose last contribution was 2 months ago. I also see a fair amount of recent opposes by established editors above. Has the time come for a final discussion on whether to accept, reject, or amend this proposal? - Mtmelendez ( Talk| UB| Home) 04:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm thinking of leaving this RFC open for a week or two, especially to give time to the main contributor to respond. After that, I'm inclined to nominate for MfD for a final binding solution. How does that sound? - Mtmelendez ( Talk| UB| Home) 02:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Nor is listification. (Is it possible that its meaning might be found in some obscure reference somewhere.) Why is this a problem? Because it may make this article original research ( WP:NOR ) and since it is not a word then it lacks notability ( WP:N ). Perhaps renaming the article to perhaps "Over listing" or perhaps "excessive listing" might solve the problem and make finding the article easier for those unfamiliar with the Wiki..I'm making the point for your consideration; I'll leave any discussion of this point to those concerned. -- User:Warrior777 ( talk) 19:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I asked on the talk page of List of unmanned aerial vehicles whether the (hugely overblown) list should be reduced by removing all red-linked and non-linked entries - even if they had references (which are typically only links to the manufacturer's website). So far nobody has responded. Should I boldly go ahead and trim it right down? 10mmsocket ( talk) 10:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Lists Project‑class | |||||||
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Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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Please add any changes or additions anyone would like concerning this topic.
Instead of creating multiple guidelines dealing with essentially the same subject, why don't you expand Wikipedia:Overcategorization by adding a section specific to lists, and maybe consequently change the title of the guideline. CG 21:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
In my view, lists and categories are sufficiently different that you shouldn't merge any "over-" guidelines. The same argument would apply to merging Wikipedia:List guideline and Wikipedia:Categorization. If you see why those two pages shouldn't be merged, then the same applies here. Carcharoth 17:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The overcategorization guideline is based on the clear repeated precedents set at CFD. This guideline, if it is to exist, should be based on clear repeated precedents set at AFD. Examples of those discussions should be linked. Since there are already discussions about criteria for deleting articles, this guideline should address how those guidelines (NPOV, notability, etc...) apply to lists. I also hope that the standards for being an acceptable list are more liberal than those for the acceptability of a category. If there is to be a listing here it should be for lists that cannot be made acceptable, and not cite discussions where lists were removed because of other defects (like being unreferenced) -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
This page is an attempt to set guidelines favoring one particular outcome of debates about lists--the view of those people there who seem to dislike many lists. Their view often, but not always prevails, and I see this is an attempt to cast in stone their preferences, especially as it uses for examples some lists about which there was sharp disagreement. Guidelines such as these should be based upon a general consensus, not a possibly temporary victory on some examples. More specifically
Yes, this page is a good idea, but like WP:OCAT it should be based upon existing and accepted AFD outcomes. Incidentally you may want to borrow some of the wording from OCAT, in particular wrt arbitrary and unclear inclusion criteria. I'd suggest keeping the two pages separate, although they should cross-reference; for instance, OCAT mentions in several spots that a list is better for that kind of information. The best approach is to only make entries on this page for which you can find three or four semi-recent AFD debates that indeed favored deleting them. >Radiant< 15:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I added a bunch of real examples. I still need real example of Agenda-Oriented lists. So far I could only find a few without digging through the thousands of archives. Can anyone help? Bulldog123 04:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I hope we can discuss the distinctions between Lists and Categories. Considering the examples mentioned in the Wikipedia:Overlistification#Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists section, some of these were deleted because there was already a category. This seems backwards. It often makes more sense for these categories to be lists than vice versa. That is certainly the way many CFD discussions have gone. Take for example, LGBT composers. If someone sees that a composer was LGBT, and it is linked to a list, the list could discuss aspects of their sexuality and how it related to their lives as composers. If there is a significant connection between sexuality and being a composer, it would be a valid category. If the connection is tenuous, it might still be a good list. The criteria that we have worked out for categories requires the significant connection. I would say that the only requirement for a list is that the connection could reasonably be mentioned in the articles. In this way we would be saying that we are making editorial decisions about these connections. If the connection is trivial, it should be removed from the individual articles. If that is the case then the lists should also be deleted. So if we remove the fact that John Fooman likes fried chicken, we'd also remove the List of people who like fried chicken. If it alright to mention that actor John Fooman is a Morman, than it would be alright to have a List of Morman actors. If books are written and courses taught about Morman actors it would be alright to elevate the list to being a category.
So the big problem I'm having with this page is the underlying thinking behind deleting these lists. It would help if there was some consensus about why these lists need to be deleted. I don't see the consensus for a clear rationale in many of the AFD discussions. The burden of proof necessary for deleting any article should be that they are destructive to the project in some way. I don't see a consensus about how they are destructive. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
"If it alright to mention that actor John Fooman is a Morman, than it would be alright to have a List of Morman actors."
Since this guideline is proposing to tweak the Overcategorization guideline for use with lists, this guideline needs to be more integrated with Wikipedia:List guideline and Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists). Categories and lists are similar but separate beasts and this guideline needs to reflect that. As it states at Wikipedia:List guideline, lists have three main purposes: Information, Navigation, and Development.
This guideline doesn't reflect any of this and appears to being developed separately from the list guidelines, using only category specific info. That said, there are some good things in this proposed guideline. In particular, the Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists appears similar to what I've proposed at Wikipedia:Proposed guideline for lists of people by ethnicity, religion, and other cultural categorizations. Some tweaking of language would be needed, but the similarities are there.
Unfortunately, there is the appearance that this guideline is being created to bolster one side of the debate around the deletion of certain types of lists. I'm sure the same could be said for my proposed guideline. Perhaps we should try to fix this perception. As people may know, the guidelines and policies which succeed at Wikipedia tend to be the ones which reach consensus from people on both sides of a debate. Perhaps we should merge info from Wikipedia:Proposed guideline for lists of people by ethnicity, religion, and other cultural categorizations with this proposed guideline, bring in info from the current list guidelines, and see if we all can't reach a general consensus on this issue. Any thoughts on this from people?-- Alabamaboy 18:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok Bama, how is your proposal different? You seem to support the irrelevant intersections part, but I haven't seen that exemplified on some AFDs. Your posse seems to be in agreement but we need some type of specifics on what there is to merge. Bulldog123 03:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason for this proposal other than to provide ammunition to deletionists in AfD debates. First of all, it fails to give any reason why Wikipedia:Overcategorization should be tweaked and applied to lists. The overcategorization gives two compelling reasons for not creating certain types of categories, even when they meet the policies of verifiability and NPOV: "For lengthy articles, this could potentially result in hundreds of categories, most of which aren't particularly relevant. This may also make it more difficult to find any particular category for a specific article." Neither of these reasons apply to lists.
Further, the overcategorization page states that it is "based on existing guidelines and previous precedent at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion". This proposal, however, is based on a few AfD discussions, some of which resulted in no consensus, and some of which resulted in deletion " with no prejudice against sourced recreation." Some of these were deleted only after 2 or 3 nominations. This hardly indicates an overwhelming consensus that there is an "overlistification" problem that needs to be addressed with a new guideline. Some arguments to delete a list were based on the (IMO faulty) reason that the list would be better as a category, while completely ignoring the real overcategorization problem.
Lists, just like any other articles, must be verifiable, not based on personal research, and not promoting a particluar point-of-view. But this proposal goes beyond those policies and applies them in a POV-fashion toward a certain goal, which appears to be to simply reduce the number of lists in Wikipedia. For reasons unclear to me, certain people seem to be offended by the existence of certain types of lists.
This proposal seems to be based on the presumpions and personal opinions of the author. For example, it declares certain intesections are "irrelevant". It then goes on to correctly note that relevance should not be based on original research, but then imposes a higher standard than policy requires: "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested." The verifiablity policy requires only that sources be reliable, and notability guidelines say that coverage should be non-trivial and independent of the subject in order for there to be a separate article (or list in this case). But that is far from saying there must be a "reasonable amount" (whatever that means) of "solid, mainstream" (not just reliable) sources, and demanding a certain type of discussion about the intersection, not just non-trivial coverage.
"Catholic businesspersons", for example, is hardly an irrelevant intersection to Tom Monaghan [3] [4]? Note that there was a previous discussion about ethnicity/religion-profession intersection lists, and it failed to reach any sort of consensus back then, and I don't see any consensus now.
Many deletion debates seem to be simply based on subjective interpretions of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or Wikipedia is not a directory. This policy gives specific examples of "indiscriminate information" and "directories" but otherwise gives little guidance on how to objectively interpret these phrases in relation to anything that does not fall within those examples. One person's "indiscriminate list" or "directory" may be another's " verifiable, reliably sourced, neutral, informative, encyclopedic, navigation aid". These policies seem to conflict the most, and thus result in the most subjective debates, when it comes to lists.
Another example, songs about tequila was important enough to be the subject of an interview on CNN, or several pages in a book about country songs. And there is no shortage of reliable sources talking about celebrity pets.
Finally, what the proposal calls "over-extensive" lists seems to include Lists of topics and Lists of people, and every list linked on those pages. And the last comment, " Wikipedia is not paper but it is bytes" is completely meaningless; the policy itself states "there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content." Storage is essentially infinite for the purposes of Wikipedia (and if storage ever does become a problem, the Foundation will certainly do something about it). DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Further, the overcategorization page states that it is "based on existing guidelines and previous precedent at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion". This proposal, however, is based on a few AfD discussions, some of which resulted in no consensus, and some of which resulted in deletion " with no prejudice against sourced recreation." Some of these were deleted only after 2 or 3 nominations. This hardly indicates an overwhelming consensus that there is an "overlistification" problem that needs to be addressed with a new guideline. Some arguments to delete a list were based on the (IMO faulty) reason that the list would be better as a category, while completely ignoring the real overcategorization problem. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Lists, just like any other articles, must be verifiable, not based on personal research, and not promoting a particluar point-of-view. But this proposal goes beyond those policies and applies them in a POV-fashion toward a certain goal, which appears to be to simply reduce the number of lists in Wikipedia. For reasons unclear to me, certain people seem to be offended by the existence of certain types of lists. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
This proposal seems to be based on the presumpions and personal opinions of the author. For example, it declares certain intesections are "irrelevant". It then goes on to correctly note that relevance should not be based on original research, but then imposes a higher standard than policy requires: "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested." The verifiablity policy requires only that sources be reliable, and notability guidelines say that coverage should be non-trivial and independent of the subject in order for there to be a separate article (or list in this case). But that is far from saying there must be a "reasonable amount" (whatever that means) of "solid, mainstream" (not just reliable) sources, and demanding a certain type of discussion about the intersection, not just non-trivial coverage. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
"Catholic businesspersons", for example, is hardly an irrelevant intersection to Tom Monaghan [5] [6]? Note that there was a previous discussion about ethnicity/religion-profession intersection lists, and it failed to reach any sort of consensus back then, and I don't see any consensus now. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Many deletion debates seem to be simply based on subjective interpretions of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or Wikipedia is not a directory. This policy gives specific examples of "indiscriminate information" and "directories" but otherwise gives little guidance on how to objectively interpret these phrases in relation to anything that does not fall within those examples. One person's "indiscriminate list" or "directory" may be another's " verifiable, reliably sourced, neutral, informative, encyclopedic, navigation aid". These policies seem to conflict the most, and thus result in the most subjective debates, when it comes to lists. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Another example, songs about tequila was important enough to be the subject of an interview on CNN, or several pages in a book about country songs. And there is no shortage of reliable sources talking about celebrity pets. DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Finally, what the proposal calls "over-extensive" lists seems to include Lists of topics and Lists of people, and every list linked on those pages. And the last comment, " Wikipedia is not paper but it is bytes" is completely meaningless; the policy itself states "there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content." Storage is essentially infinite for the purposes of Wikipedia (and if storage ever does become a problem, the Foundation will certainly do something about it). DHowell 04:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
No consensus is forming for this. It's just overly broad, has failed to state why it is important, and i just saw it cited as a reason to delete a list that was unanimously kept three months ago. If the list was unanimously kept three months ago then isn't it fairly obvious that there's no consensus for this policy based off of AFD? Finally, categories and lists just serve totally (and obviously) different functions; there's just no good reason given here that isn't already given at WP:LIST and indeed it should never have been a fork of the list guideline. -- JayHenry 05:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe that this list cannot be salvaged into something that would be useful for the project. I am sorry and I don't mean this as a personal attack or as revenge for a few deletions I would have voted differently about. I don't think there's any way to move forward and I don't think this is an appropriate way to amend list guidelines. -- JayHenry 16:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It's hard to format responses in bullets like this. But associate number with number:
I think it is time to tag this with {{ rejected}}. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 20:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I find it unacceptable to refer to this proposal as a basis for non-notability of articles. I don't understand why this proposal was submitted shortly before the List of journalists killed in Russia was filed for deletion. The Wikipedia:Categorization of people guideline allows for intersections of occupation and residence categories such as "Journalists" & "Russian". I don't think intersecting that with the "Murdered" category will make the sub-category non-notable. I can't find a matching example in Wikipedia:Overcategorization. ilgiz 01:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm converting this from a proposal to an essay. However, I do very much want other people to contribute to this essay, whether it be deleting or adding material, because I don't want it to just be seen as a deletionist standpoint. Thanks to Sam, JayHenry, and DHowell for being thorough commenters. Please do consider implementing revisions. Bulldog123 21:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a bit of controversy at the moment about such articles as List of Rajputs and List of Poles. What do we think, would this be better represented as a category, or as a list, or both? Perhaps we can add something to either this page or OCAT. >Radiant< 11:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Tweaking the overcategorization guideline to apply it to lists doesn't make any sense. As WP:OC says in its introduction,
That is the only reason to avoid overcategorization given in the guideline. It is a practical reason, based on the limitations of the software. If we could display arbitrary intersections in a usable way, they would actually help rather than hinder the navigation and usefulness of the project. But as it is, adding too many categories result in a cluttered and nearly-useless footer at the bottom of the page.
The reason above does not apply to lists. Inclusion in a list article does not clutter any other articles, as the only effect shows up in the "What links here" tool, which is very minor. Lists can be useful for navigation. I don't know where people get the idea that every single page on Wikipedia has to be "encyclopedic" (whatever that means), when it is quite obvious that we do have many pages that are not encyclopedia articles but just navigational aids (think about disambiguation pages, for example). Lists can also be seen as navigational aids, similar to categories but without some of the limitations of categories. -- Itub 12:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
While I do support WP:OCAT, I don't support this Overlistification proposal in its current form. Here are some of my problems with it:
- The proposal appears to imply that "tweaking" the category guidelines should apply to lists. However categories intentionally are supposed to have a higher barrier against creation than lists because a bad category can affect a hundred articles while a bad list is just a single bad article. Valid categories generally make for valid lists, but not all valid lists make for valid categories. So the restrictions on creating lists are intentionally looser than the restrictions on creating categories.
- In the section "Irrelevant Intersections by Race, Gender, Beliefs, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion Lists", the proposal says that "There must be a reasonable amount of solid, mainstream articles, books, or documentaries specifically addressing the issue of a connection between the intersectees and showing how that relationship is manifested, for it to have some notability as an intersection. The existence of the intersection outside of wikipedia is not proof enough that it is a notable intersection." I actually am not sure I entirely believe that statement is true. That's because lists serve dual purposes. One is to present a combination of entries to inform the reader on a broader topic. The other, though, is to serve as search indices for related articles on a topic, much like categories serve as search indices for their articles.
It is quite possible, I think, for a list to serve a useful function as a navigational list for the reader without the "overall topic" of the list being specifically notable. There are probably useful ways of organizing navigational hub articles within broad topics that haven't been discussed, and these hubs do not always constitute original research since they do not necessarilly constitute an original opinion or rely on primary sources for their reliability.
Therefore I don't currently accept the general notion that overall list topics need to have been thoroughly discussed by outside publications. Rather, the list needs to be properly referenced, having an easily and objectively determinable inclusion criteria (to avoid the list actually being original research) and serve some sort of useful function for readers on the topic.
- Under "Trivia/Trivial lists", the section says that "This is essentially expanding upon what wikipedia is not: an indiscriminate collection of information." That is an incorrect statement because WP:IINFO does not deal with trivia at all. The word trivia doesn't even appear in the section, and that is intentional. Rather, IINFO is the catch-all for WP:NOT that includes various specific types of information which Wikipedia can discriminate against.
Now that being said, there is a proposal on the WP:NOT page to introduce a new section to WP:NOT that outlines what the five pillars mean when they say "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection." There is also the "Not a directory of loosely associated facts" section that is sometimes relevant to trivia lists. And there's also WP:TRIVIA as a style guide. So my advice would be that if you want to mention trivia at all you should reference any or all of those sections and not "indiscriminate collection of information".
- In "Over-extensive Lists" the section appears to contradict itself by saying that "When a list is prone to having many listees that can never have an article written about them, or that simply fail notability, the list can usually be deemed as over-extensive and would probably function better as a category." The problem with that statement is that clearly if a large number of entries on a list don't have articles then you can't use a category for it because the category will be missing a large number of entries.
It is quite possible for a list to contain both a mix of entries which have their own separate articles and entries which do not have their own articles. For example, I think the odds are good that many song lists will contain songs that do not have their own articles but that, in order to be complete, those songs must be included in the list. Similarly not all sporting events have their own article, but it's quite possible to have lists of related events within a season or for a team or player which is a necessary data adjunct to a discussion on the topic. Even with non-notable entries, though, the list as a whole can still serve a useful navigational or informative purpose for readers on the topic, especially when it contains at least some notable entries with their own articles.
So in summary I can't support this proposal as written, and even possibly as it is currently intended to function. It would take a serious rewrite for me to consider this as a guideline. Dugwiki 15:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
It would seem to me (in looking over the discussion examples) that all but one of the entries on this page are essentially saying the same thing:
The other entry concerns "trivia", which is, of course, subjective anyway. (Which is also explained more clearly in other guidelines, style guides, and the like.)
It would seem to me that, since this is merely 2 ideas, that the two ideas be merged to some more appropriate page (for ease of reference, at least). For example, the essays Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Listcruft seem to cover similar perspectives.
Or as an alternative, remove the trivia entry (or merge it elsewhere), and refactor this page to be about:
This could be clearer, cleaner, and likely be less controverial that way. - jc37 18:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
{{ RFCpolicy }} I see that this proposed, and possibly unfinished page has been worked on by basically a single editor, who contributed extensively in June, not so much in July, and whose last contribution was 2 months ago. I also see a fair amount of recent opposes by established editors above. Has the time come for a final discussion on whether to accept, reject, or amend this proposal? - Mtmelendez ( Talk| UB| Home) 04:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm thinking of leaving this RFC open for a week or two, especially to give time to the main contributor to respond. After that, I'm inclined to nominate for MfD for a final binding solution. How does that sound? - Mtmelendez ( Talk| UB| Home) 02:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Nor is listification. (Is it possible that its meaning might be found in some obscure reference somewhere.) Why is this a problem? Because it may make this article original research ( WP:NOR ) and since it is not a word then it lacks notability ( WP:N ). Perhaps renaming the article to perhaps "Over listing" or perhaps "excessive listing" might solve the problem and make finding the article easier for those unfamiliar with the Wiki..I'm making the point for your consideration; I'll leave any discussion of this point to those concerned. -- User:Warrior777 ( talk) 19:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
I asked on the talk page of List of unmanned aerial vehicles whether the (hugely overblown) list should be reduced by removing all red-linked and non-linked entries - even if they had references (which are typically only links to the manufacturer's website). So far nobody has responded. Should I boldly go ahead and trim it right down? 10mmsocket ( talk) 10:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)