Wikipedia talk:Lists as cruft magnets

Why I created this

We seem to be having a lot of list articles created to keep crufty lists from swamping the parent article. As can be seen, there are a number of such articles just from one day's AfD log. Assuming that we would like to discourage such lists, we need to spell this out a bit more.

Clearly this has the potential to be merged into one of the other list guideline articles. Mangoe 16:40, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance, nice. Although, we might want to merge this advice with an existing list-related guideline so it's easier to find. -- Ned Scott 03:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It may be better to take a look at WP:OCAT and create a page like Wikipedia:Overlistification to elaborate on what kinds of list aren't useful. Just a thought. >Radiant< 13:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this should really be expanded to anything acting as a cruft magnet, because people do this for other things too. -Amarkov moo! 02:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I'm conceding defeat

If we can't get rid of the endless lists of fourth wall examples, we can't get rid of anything. It's obvious that the community consensus is that all policy on these lists is void. Mangoe 03:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The point is probably that we don't have a recent and accurate guideline on lists. Perhaps we should write one; it worked fine for categories. >Radiant< 08:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In this project page the use of categories is offered as a solution to not having list cruft. Yet if one goes through the CfD pages, lists are often the proposed solution for not having category cruft. IMO, it is important to make better use of Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes to act as a coordinating page, or to create a subpage for it. Another point that makes the cleanup process harder, is that those who particpate in per-policy CfD, TfD and AfD usually avoid to contact individual projects, probably because of fear of project ILIKEIT. This is exactly why we should give priority to planning and WP participation. If projects see a clear plan that takes care of their needs, there will be the kind of community consensus that will make everybody's task easier. Hoverfish Talk 13:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]