Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists/Archive 3

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non-standalone lists, and this project page

Almost all the rules for lists should apply regardless of whether the list is stand-alone or in-article. The exceptions being how WP:N is incorporated, and the need for pre-amble. I propose (as a very long term proposal - and solely for debate at this time) that this article should be reworked into a guideline for lists generally, with a section (probably quite small) dealing with the specific concerns of stand-alone lists (aka list articles). ‒ Jaymax✍ 03:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, having gotten myself confused between this article and it's more generically focused sibling, scratch that - it's more of a rebalancing I'm thinking of. ‒ Jaymax✍ 07:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Sectional List Anchors Merely Geeky Usability Issue

It's been a while since I was an HTML developer so forgive me if I forget my terminology.

Used to be that lists that were separated into anchored sections had the convention of ~/List_of_x#sensible_name.

Now it appears to be, at least for TV episodes (my main exposure to Lists), ~/List_of_TV_Show_Episodes#Season_2:year1.i.don't.know.what.this.info.is.year2.

The problem is, I cannot type the URL for one show, then just change the show name and season number.

To make matters worse, the scheme used for those inner numbers is not documented anywhere I can find, so I can't even easily adapt.

Now, there may be a good reason for the new change, but in terms of usability for this merely geeky dude, it's not a helpful change.

$0.025, Ericfive (talk) 02:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I used to spend a lot of time going around and removing the 2002–2003 part of ~/List_of_TV_Show_Episodes#Season_2 url. There's no need for it. The tables say what dates the episodes aired, as well as the oft-used Series overview section. It's also the stylistic choice of Wikipedia:WikiProject Television not to include the date ranges in the headings. It appears that I might have to go around and remove them again. FWIW, I don't recall seeing any Featured list episodes lists with the date ranges. Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Usability issues of Lead section

Input from a regular user of wikipedia about usability of these lists.

First, without wikipedia, life would suck, and finding entertaining entertainment downright medieval.

That said, I find the current iteration of TV episode lists to have decreased in usability.

My biggest complaint is that the lead sections are way too long. When I go to a page entitled "List of The Simpsons Episodes," I want to see a list of all Simpsons episodes, 'and nothing else.' I recognize that a brief statement regarding list organization may be appropriate, but I find it frustrating to have to scroll below the fold to find contents (my display resolution is 1280 x 800).

I remember a time when there was scarcely a paragraph in front of the contents, and those were, in fact, better old days.

$0.02, Ericfive (talk) 02:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

All lists are also articles, and all articles must include a WP:LEAD section that introduces the article and summarises itsmost important aspects. As that page says (emphasis added by myself)

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies.

This means that there shouldn't really be anything in the main body of the article that isn't mentioned even briefly in the Lede, and there shouldn't be anything in the Lede that isn't covered in further detail in the main body. Many articles and lists fail to do this correctly, but more so in the past than is current practice, in my experience.

I think a lede section of 2 to 3 paragraphs for a list of episodes is a decent size, and good practice. It's not desirable to go to such a page and see a list of episodes and nothing else. It sounds like the lists you go to are of TV shows you're already familiar with. Well that's fine, so you don't need to read the introduction, and just want to get into the nitty-gritty of the page. But what if another reader of the page clicked Special:Random or clicked the link from an external site, or clicks through from what would initially seem a totally unrelated article, and does not actually have any knowledge of the series in question? Rather than directing them away from the page to another, and another, and another, there is information to provide enough context that if they find this page interesting after they've read it, they can go to one of the other pages (main series, a season page, character list or character page). In no way is it better to have no information on a page other than a table.

If the lede is so undesirable to you, is it really that hard to press the "PG DN" button on your keyboard, scroll the wheel on your mouse, or just click on the first section in the contents box? Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

List of The Simpsons episodes might want a little attention. It contained, for example, two copies of the same sentence, and still contains a fair bit of information that has nothing to do with the episodes themselves (e.g., the point of the list).

I think that lists should contain a lead, but they need not be long. A lead that says only slightly more than "This is a list of episodes for The Simpsons. There have been X seasons and Y episodes so far" is probably adequate for most lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Reverted undiscussed guideline status change

I have reverted this edit [1] by User:DCGeist from May 26, 2010 which resulted in an undiscussed change of this longstanding style guideline into a content guideline. Based on the edit summary, as well as this discussion I think this may have been an inadvertent mistake while attempting to rename this style guideline [2] with even the {{List navbox}} navigation template still linking to this page as a "style guideline". The relabeling this "style guideline" as a "content guideline" has resulted in this style guideline being misused as a reason to remove content from articles, directly conflicting with the WP:NNC section of the Notability guideline itself. --Tothwolf (talk) 08:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Verifiability and references

I read this in the archive but I'm wondering about lists in general. I like the point that person made in the archive saying refs should be added for the possible scenario of reading WP offline. I see a lot of list articles but no refs on them. It seems lists have very relaxed standards. Devourer09 (t·c) 15:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Remember, Wikipedia is a work in progress. That there's a lot of unreferenced lists doesn't mean that we think they're fine that way. This is what we think lists look like when they have become presentable. There shouldn't be any unreferenced lists in there. Goodraise 19:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

If the list is intended as a navigational aid, then citations are much less important.

Furthermore, I don't see any reason why citation would be especially helpful to people reading offline. 'Offline' usually indicates that you have all of Wikipedia on a stack of CD-ROMs, so you've got the other articles, but not the Internet. How much benefit would you get out of a citation to http:/SmallWebsite.com, or to "Smith, John. (2002) "An article with a vague title." A Tiny Magazine You've Never Heard Of."?

My bet is that you'd get a lot more value out of that if you can ask your favorite web search engine about it -- that is, for online reading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. If you think that citations are less important in lists intended as navigational aids, but still important enough to be needed, then I don't understand why you even bothered to say anything. Therefore, I'll assume that you're trying to argue in favor of the stance that lists intended as navigational aids don't need references at all.

Sure, navigational aids don't need references. Redirects don't need references. Disambiguation pages don't need references. However, even stand-alone lists which are intended as navigational aids are more than just that. They are articles. And articles need references. They need references because our readers benefit so immensely from their presence in that they provide verifiability.

Now, I could probably write up a whole essay about what's wrong with your analysis of the relation between offline reading and the usefulness of citations, but I don't even have to go that far because I'm reading Wikipedia online and I still want those citations. When I read a list of atheists and find the name Sigmund Freud in it, then that's the same as any other article saying "Sigmund Freud is/was an atheist." So, what if I want to verify that? I can just hop over to the linked article you say? Great! So, all I have to do to verify a fact from article A is to read article B in the hopes of that article supporting the claim made by article A and on top of that providing a reference for said claim. What a breeze. And that is only the ideal case. What if the article name is suddenly red-linked? What if said fact was mentioned in article B at some point, but not anymore? What if the fact was part of a section that has been spun-out into a new summary style article? Should I also read all articles linked from article B in search of a citation for the fact from article A? Of course not. Citations should be provided where claims are made, not somewhere else. Goodraise 22:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well said. and is but one of the many reasons, though unrelated to the main point here, why that bloody stupid nonsense 'outline' stuff has to go. → ROUX ₪ 22:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Curious. What is that "'outline' stuff" you're referring to? Goodraise 00:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

See WP:Outlines for the theory, and Outline of cell biology for an example.

And, no, I don't believe that our readers necessarily benefit more from a list that says One,^[1] Two,^[1] Three^[1] than from a list that says One, Two, Three. If the information is verifiable (and uncontested, and not a direct quotation), then IMO a citation may actually be superfluous, particularly on pages whose goal is to get readers off to another page as quickly as possible. IMO a list that is intended as a navigational aid (e.g., most "List of books by Author X" or "List of towns in the State of Y") has far more in common with our routinely uncited disambiguation pages than with regular articles, and should be held to similar standards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You certainly are entitled to your opinion. Perhaps we should inform our readers that they're not supposed to linger around our navigational list for too long. After all, they might find something they'd want to verify. But seriously, if a navigational list bears a striking resemblance to the average disambiguation page, then that list needs one of two things: further development or deletion/merging. Goodraise 04:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

And doubtless the reader could find whatever they wanted to verify in the linked article. Further development might not be appropriate in every case. A navigational list can be nothing more than a list of bluelinks that are related by concept -- exactly like a dab page can be nothing more than a list of bluelinks that are related by the English word for the subjects listed on it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Doubtless, huh? What if a person in a list of gay people isn't actually gay and his or her article therefore mentions nothing about it? In what case of a list of bare or near bare links would further development (or deletion/merging) not be appropriate? I can't think of a single one. Of course, navigational lists can be nothing more than a list of bluelinks -- but they shouldn't stay that way. Not if they can be made to meet the featured list criteria. Goodraise 05:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not? What's the advantage to adding refs to a list like List of diseases (Y)? I really do think that editors can determine whether each item in the list verifiably meets the criteria (a disease that starts with the relevant letter of the alphabet). And where would you find a published reliable source that actually says, "Yes, that word begins with the letter Y!" anyway?

This, BTW, is also a good example of why we don't have to "inform our readers that they're not supposed to linger around our navigational list for too long". I doubt that anyone has ever spent more than two minutes reading that list.

As for your claim that it should be merged -- to what? To Diseases, which simply doesn't have room for a list of several thousand items? To Y (the letter)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The advantage of having citations is the same in navigational lists as it is in every other kind of article. Surely our readers could do their own research to find out if each and every entry in such a list is correct, but by that logic, we don't need references anywhere. Well then, lets go and remove all citations from today's featured article.

I won't reply to your letter-Y argument. You're not being serious.

Nobody ever spent more than two minutes reading that list because it's underdeveloped. Add a longer lead, arrange the items in a tidy table with illustrative images, succinct summaries and, yes, a citations column, and Wikipedia will be one great list richer.

"As for your claim that it [List of diseases (Y)] should be merged" -- I don't recall making this particular claim. Goodraise 07:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

See "But seriously, if a navigational list bears a striking resemblance to the average disambiguation page, then that list needs one of two things: further development or deletion/merging."

IMO a page like that doesn't need further development, because it exists for purely navigational purposes. Adding descriptions, sources, images, etc., would make the page much, much larger and much more cluttered, which means less convenient for navigation. List of diseases (A) is already 20K. Adding just two sentences and one citation for each item would make the page be ten times the size, which is well beyond WP:SIZE's recommendation. As for a lead -- what would you really say on such a subpage, that was actually relevant and wouldn't sound like a child's lesson about the alphabet? What unifies these diseases is an accident of spelling.

The list doesn't qualify for deletion, and that leaves merging as your other alternative to leaving it alone. But apparently you agree with me that this navigational list is not a good candidate for merging -- even if it could be done without resulting in a page that was measured in megabytes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we're going at this too theoretically. Could you give me an example scenario in which an editor or reader would be better served by a plain list than by one of the "cluttered" kind or by a web search engine?

To answer your question: I'd write a lead for List of diseases and use that exact same lead for List of diseases (A). Goodraise 02:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

No clutter = faster to load, easier to scan, quicker to find the word you're looking for. More information requires additional bandwidth to load the page, increases the amount of scrolling necessary (bad for people with repetitive stress injuries), is more likely to result in people giving up because of information overload (MEGO), and can cause significant inefficiency for people who use screen readers. Every reason for keeping an entry on a dab page down to a short phrase applies to these lists as well.

Since I seriously doubt that anyone is going to reach these pages without first going to List of diseases ("List of diseases (Y)" is not exactly a natural search term, after all), I think repeating the same lead on all 27 alphabetic (and numeric) subpages would be entirely redundant. (I've no objection to a suitable lead on the main page; for one thing, it could explain how List of disorders is a [sort of] different subject.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for the advantages of keeping lists free of clutter. I was asking for a specific case in which such a list would be better for the reader because I can't really think of one. Personally, if I know the name of what I want to read about, I type it into the address bar or the search field or I use a web search engine, and when I don't know the name of what I'm looking for or if I'm just strolling around the encyclopedia, I appreciate all that clutter. I simply wonder, what, in your opinion, the target user of these plain lists is.

"Since I seriously doubt that anyone is going to reach these pages without first going to List of diseases" -- In August 2010, List of diseases (A) was viewed 2281 times.[3] For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that are 2281 different readers. During the same time, Special:Random was called 274639155 times.[4] With 3441909 articles (current number) in the encyclopedia,[5] that gives us about 80 views per page and month. That is 3.5% of the 'readers' of List of diseases (A). For List of diseases (Y) with its 245,[6] that is 32.6% of the 'readers'. Goodraise 05:27, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me spell out the circumstance that makes a short list better than a long page, then: You know the name of the disease (or, at least, you're pretty sure you'll recognize it). You don't know how to spell it, and Special:Search wasn't smart enough to figure out what you're looking for -- or maybe it didn't find it, because it's currently a redlink.

Scanning quickly down "List of diseases (letter)" will help you quickly find the page. Loading a 200K page, with descriptions and table formatting and maybe images, will help you slowly find the page. Do you understand the advantage to being able to find your target faster? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, first of all, redlinks aren't invisible. Using Special:Search to look for Absent corpus callosum cataract immunodeficiency (random example) will yield List of diseases (A) as the second result.

"Do you understand the advantage to being able to find your target faster?" -- You're making fun of me. I like that.

On to your example. So, I know the name of what I'm looking for well enough to recognize it out of a list of names, but not well enough to spell it well enough for Special:Search to find it or to use my browser's find function to look for even parts of its name. Also, I don't know how the item I'm in search of looks like, rendering all images useless to me. Analogously, I'm unaware of the most basic characteristics of the item I'm looking for and therefore cannot use my browser's find function to scan the page for terms that might reasonably show up in a short description of the item or use any sorting facilities the list may offer to narrow down the number of item names I'll have to look through. Well, I suppose, under these specific circumstances, a plain list would actually be a faster means to find what I'm looking for. It would probably not be a great improvement in terms of speed, and I don't think I'll get into situations like that very often, but I'll have to acknowledge that you've made a point. Touché! The question remains, however, whether or not this circumstantial superiority is worth it. Goodraise 00:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, it does work that way on occasion: People hear something at the doc's office, and they don't ask questions, and they go home with half a name and a quarter of an idea of what it might be. I once decoded a garbled name passed to me by a friend of a patient (one, BTW, that's redlinked in this list). The only things that reached me correctly were the first two letters, the number of syllables, and the number at the end. That's not enough to search on; it is enough to find it in a list (and I believe that's why they called me: they couldn't find anything through their favorite website search engine).

Now, should this be the most important situation? I don't think so. I don't object to adding very brief, dab-style descriptions. But I'd leave it like that: just half a sentence or so, probably taken from the article's first sentence, and normally left unsourced -- exactly like a disambiguation page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If you are adding additional information to a navigational list of wikilinks such as List of diseases (Y), technically you are converting the list into a glossary, and there really is no reason we can't have both a navigational list and and glossary. As for WP:SIZE, this was more of an issue before web browsers in general became more efficient. Plain text is often compressed at some point before it reaches the browser (either via the web server or a proxy) or might even be compressed by the user's connection itself (most modems support this). The text portion of an article is highly compressible, so the 32KB recommendation is becoming outdated and largely irrelevant. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: stale discussion, closing as no consensus Kotniski (talk) 14:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (stand-alone lists) —

This page was moved to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (stand-alone lists) by User:Gnevin on May 24, 2010 [7] per this discussion but then moved back to Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists by User:DCGeist on May 26, 2010, [8] who appears to have mistakenly thought that this page was not previously part of Wikipedia's Manual of Style. I discovered this while attempting to figure out how this page had suddenly changed status from being part of the manual of style into a "content guideline", [9] which as I noted above, [10] appears to have been an inadvertent mistake.

The rename seems to make sense in that it keeps the page naming consistent with the rest of Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (lists), with this page having been listed as part of the manual of style since it was first categorised in Category:Wikipedia style guidelines on October 29, 2005, [11] and then marked with {{style-guideline}} on August 8, 2006. [12] While I think it would be fairly uncontroversial to follow through with the renaming per the previous discussions and move this page to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (stand-alone lists), I thought I'd initiate a discussion first rather than just boldly move this page back. --Tothwolf (talk) 06:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

My only question is where on the main WP:MOS page you would propose to put the reference to this page. Looking at the other components of the MOS, this page doesn't seem to fit: it does look more like a content guideline to me (though I recognize we are splitting hairs with this discussion). I guess I feel like "if it ain't broke," and that the "someone tried to move it before, so we should try again" argument does not really hold water with me. UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As I already pointed out, this page was already a part of the MOS prior to the recent renames of the other MOS pages. See [13] and [14] This page however, is not a "content guideline", nor was it written to be one, with previous revisions clearly indicating that this page was written as and intended to be MOS material.

I'm not proposing that this page become part of the MOS, as it already is. This really isn't the place to revisit the larger rename discussion that previously took place. [15] --Tothwolf (talk) 02:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is. Not all "style guidelines" are part of the Manual of Style itself. See the documentation at Template:MoS-guideline, especially the second item in the list at the top. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• This is properly a part of the MOS guidelines, and should always have been named as such. I don't really see why this is even controversial. (personally, I consider that, while all guidelines are flexible for special cases, the details in the MOS need to be somewhat more flexible than other guidelines, and are usually interpreted in such manner.) DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Hmm. It does appear to be more than 50% a content guideline, and less of a manual of style page:
  1. Only the short section "Chronological ordering" gives style advice;
  2. than there's "General formatting" which is a repeat of the info at MOS:LIST#List articles,
  3. then a summary of naming conventions (which are supplementary to the content policy WP:TITLE).
  4. The bulk of the page is then devoted to content recommendations: "Lead and selection criteria", "Appropriate topics for lists", "Categories, lists and navigation templates".
• However, the same could be said of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists) which is more cleanly separated: the top half is a content guideline, the bottom half is a style guideline. – So, if that page can be labeled a MoS page, than I guess this one can be, too. As long as the wikilawyers don't abuse the decision, I'll be contented. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Need more clarity in "Lists of people" section

The "Lists of people" section contains some guidance that could be improved. It currently says:

Original Text - People to be included in a list should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future). For example, lists of atheists doesn't include every individual with a Wikipedia article who happens to be an atheist, because not all of them are notable for their atheism. However, it might well include Sigmund Freud. See also Wikipedia:Notability (people). Lists may include people who are notable for a single event or activity and therefore do not have their own article, if they are of particular importance in the context of this event or activity. However, individuals in lists who do not have a Wikipedia article, need to have a citation or a Wikipedia link for their connection to the list and for their notability, even if it is notable for a single event or activity. An exception is nationality/ethnicity. List of Albanians includes persons who are famous in any category and who belong to Albania. The criteria for identifying as an Albanian does not solely depend upon the official citizenship laws of that country – a person could be related to the place by birth, residency, parentage, or by his or her personal admission, considers himself or herself to be an Albanian at heart. Lists of people must follow Wikipedia's policy on biographical information about living people. For example, care must be taken when adding people to the list of gay, lesbian or bisexual people, and each addition must be sourced reliably.

This shortcomings of this guidance are:

1. The phrase "selected for importance/notability in that category" is ambiguous: Does it mean they are notable because they are in the category; or does it mean they can be notable for another reason, and are relatively famous within the category?
2. The requirement "should have (or will have) a WP article" is better stated as "meets WP notability guidelines"
3. The example of Sigmund Freud is useless unless the reader has outside knowledge
4. The guidance does not accurately reflect the rules used to include people in lists.
5. "individuals in lists who do not have a Wikipedia article" - ambiguous: does "do not have" modify "lists" or "individuals"?
6. Exception for ethnicity and nationality is also true for religion and orientation lists
7. "Albanian at heart" is too slangy
8. "An exception is nationality/ethnicity." - Not clear what this an exception to. There are several requirements in the preceding paragraph: which does it apply to?

I think a more clear wording would be something like:

Proposed Text - A person may be included in a list of people if all the following requirements are met: The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement. An exception to this requirement may be made if the person is especially important in the list's group; for example, if the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability. The person's membership in the list's group is notable in some way (in other words, a person should not be included in a list merely because they happen to be a member of the list's group). An exception to this requirement is made for lists based on nationality or ethnicity; for example, List of Albanians may include any Albanian, even if they are not notable in any way for being Albanian. The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources. Special care must be taken when adding living persons to lists based on religion or on sexual orientation. For further information, see Wikipedia's policy on biographical information about living people, in particular the category/list policy for living persons.

Thoughts? (PS: feel free to directly edit the suggested green text above). --Noleander (talk) 18:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and incorporated the above text into the Guideline. I also improved the wording of the other text in that section, since it also was not as clear as could be. Feel free to revise/improve. --Noleander (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted these changes for now. They may very well be sensible, but please let's have a community discussion first, and gauge community support for these proposals, before we make substantial changes to the guideline. Thanks. --JN466 08:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem. The goal of the proposal is to add clarity, not to change the guideline. --Noleander (talk) 14:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it a good time to make this clarification? There is a lot of debate going on about the ethnicity, religion, and nationality intersections that has still not come to a determination. While that debate rages on, we should be careful to note that is is very specific to those characteristics and does not seem to have any overflow into other lists of people. There are many lists of people from cities or towns, or other characteristics, that are not affected by the ongoing dicussions. I specifically wonder about the "Poeple from..." lists. While many people are not necessarily notable for being born or having lived someplace, it is almost always considered an important enough charateristic to be included in biographies and obituaries as relevant to the subject. Such information is generally not contentious (although I have seen some amazing debates over people's places of birth!) and need not be painted with the broad brush of the ethnic/religious/national debates. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 14:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

When the debate dies down, by all means this guideline should be updated to reflect the outcome .... however, this guideline already contains guidance on ethnicity, but that ethnicity guidance is confusing and ambiguous. This proposal is simply focused on bringing clarity to the guideline's wording ... especially as it relates to non-living persons (so any BLP discussions are not really relevant). Most of the suggested improvements to the text are not related to ethnicity/religion ... would it help to leave out the ethnicity/religion change for the short term? What do you think of the 8 shortcomings listed above? --Noleander (talk) 14:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I actually agree with most of your points, and even some your proposed wording. The biggest exception I have is the wording used requiring that people be notable for being a member of the topic of the list. Using the example of the Featured List List of Eagle Scouts, very few people on that list would survive that inclusion criteria. Guidelines should reflect current practice, and requiring people in lists to be notable for that subject is not current practice, nor is it best practice as shown by Category:Featured lists - our best work. I am fully supportive of clarifying the citation requirements for inclusion. I also am concerned about the apparent double standard in your wording that allows notability for any reason to qualify inclusion in national lists, but not other list (see Eagle Scouts again). Would this eliminate all of our lists on University Alumni since very few people are notable for the college they attended? I think this actually makes the issue less clear. If people can be included in nationality/ethnicity/orientation/religious lists regardless of its effect on their notability, then the same standard should apply to other lists as well. Without making judgement on the other debates, there should be one consistent rule and it should reflect actual practice. It should apply equally to List of Eagle Scouts, List of people from Jersey City, New Jersey, List of alumni of Jesus College, Oxford, as well as List of Albanians. The written exception is not reflective of what we actually do. I also do not know that your Horowitz example is any better than the Freud example, as I would have known neither. Finally, self-identification as the only basis for inclusion should be limited to the ethnic/national/orientation/religion lists. Reliable sources are still the standard for inclusion on any other lists. We can rely on the obituary of an individual to tell us where they were born even if the person never explicitly declared it. Outside of clearly contentious identities, reliable sources are still the norm. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 15:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed reply. I share your concerns, particularly about how to define inclusion for lists like Eagle Scouts, or College alumni. The goal of this proposal is to take a baby step in the direction of clarifying those subtle rules. Responding to some specific issues you raise:

• You say "self-identification as the only basis for inclusion should be limited .." I agree, and I think the proposal already includes that limitation
• Freud vs Horowitz: Horowitz is better for a couple of reasons: (1) the new proposal identifies the reason why Horowitz was notable (piano); the Freud example did not. (2) Horowitz is illustrating the rule that any source of notability is acceptable for inclusion in religion/ethnicity/orietnation lists; whereas Freud was illustrating a different situation that was somewhat confusing: the purpose of Freud (I think, Im not sure) was to illustrate the point that " noteable people cannot be included in religion lists unless they are somehow notable for their religion" - the point was the Freud's atheism was rather significant, thus he qualified, whereas other notable atheists (e.g. a famous actor who just happened to be atheist) would not qualify.
• Double standard - You are suggesting that "notability for any reason" is sufficient for inclusion in any list is interesting. I think that is a HUGE can of worms though, so it is better to take baby steps. The guideline already specifies nationality & ethnicity as falling under that rule, and Im simply proposing to extend that to religion & orientation. Going further (e.g. to college Alumni) is interesting, but may be too controversial right now, and would probably derail the rest of the proposed improvements. Maybe we can come back to Scouts/Alumi later?

--Noleander (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

From this point on, I will refer to the national/ethnic/religion/orientation as the "NERO lists" for the sake of my bad typing skills. If we are going to clarify, in light of the other discussions taking place, I would like to see all of the NERO lists together in terms of their inclusion criteria. While I have not commented on them, I see no reason to seperate any of them from what I have observed in the other debates. On the Freud v Horowitz example, could we not find a more widely recognized subject? I would suggest Barney Frank, who was clearly notable as a US Congressman 6 years before he "came out" as an example (although that may be too US biased) and is included in List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: F–G. He is self-identified, was notable for reasons other that any NERO standard, and was notable prior to his ability to be included in that list. I am certainly open to other suggestions that may be more widely recognized. On the "double standard," guidelines are only meant to be representative of what is standard practice. There are enough editors who wish to reverse the process and modify guidelines in an attempt to affect practice. The process at WP is that practice defines guidelines. I understand your desire to be incremental in the process, and try to avoid any major conflagration over changing the guideline, but I think that if it is to be clarified, it should be clarified to reflect actual practice. We don't modify guidelines in a way that may result in the deletion of featured content. We change guidelines to reflect that such deletions have already taken place because consensus has changed. They are supposed to be descriptive, and not to be prescriptive. If that means RfC's and long, convoluted discussions, I am OK with that. I am also OK with limiting any changes now to those things that are not likely to be contentious, and later starting the process for a real discussion about making the guideline match what our Featured Lists already reflect. I still would not wwant any new wording to encourage anyone to nominate a feature list for deletion before such a conversation has taken place. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 21:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay ... you've got some good points there. I have no problem with updating the proposal to reflect what you are saying, but can we wait a couple of days to see of more editors have ideas? ... if no one has any strong objections, I think we should incorporate your suggestions. --Noleander (talk) 22:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

There are a couple of things here that don't sit right with me.

• One is, "Lists based on nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity may include people who are notable for any reason." Isn't that in direct contradiction to BLP policy? BLP policy says, "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." In other words, per BLP policy we are not to generate a list of all people who are gay or lesbian, but a list of people whose gay or lesbian orientation is relevant to their notable public activities. Perhaps you are talking about people here who are no longer alive, but this is not apparent to the reader.
• Another is the idea that nationality should be based on self-identification. I am pretty sure that is not current practice. --JN466 20:59, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

JN, you are right about the self-identification part, but I still see it as contentious in light of too many recent Arbcom decisions, nationalistic debates, and current conversations elsewhere that seek to include nationality with orientation and religion ("Jewish", as either ethnic, national, or religious being an especially controvertial indentification right now). These are items of contention as per BLP, whether it currently spells it out or not, and that policy tells us to tread lightly in using them to identify people. As for the relevance factor, that is currently under debate, and without a clear consensus a style guideline is the last place that should reflect the change (see my comment above about descriptive vs. prescriptive). Current practice is not to require it and, as far as I am concerned, the entire concept is a politically charged debate to try to alter the guideline to reflect wishes instead of practice. I cannot ascribe motive to those conversations, so I will refrain from breaking WP:AGF. I think we can clarify in this guideline that self-identification should be the norm for any contentious identification. I just want to be sure that we don't expand that to other, non-contentious descriptions. Alumni lists and hometown lists are common practice, are featured content, and are usually not contentious for BLPs. Plus, BLP does not apply to the deceased. Limiting the language to only define the contentious areas would be the most prudent course. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 21:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

JN: Thanks for the feedback. Replying to your questions: (1) Yes, my proposal was focusing on non-living persons, and the final sentence refers the editor to BLP for further policy on living persons. BLP trumps this guideline; but I didnt want to duplicate the BLP policy text here. (2) You suggest that "nationality should be based on self-identification" is not correct ... You may be right, I was just trying to improve the wording of the current text which reads ".. a person is Albanian at heart" as the way to test membership .. I interpreted that as "self identification". What wording would you recommend instead of the slang-y "at heart"? --Noleander (talk) 22:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It's possible that you have both misunderstood the point I was making regarding nationality. Let's look at this diff: [16] The version that you established, Noleander, said, Lists based on nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity may include people who are notable for any reason. ... Determining membership in such lists is based on the person's self-identification in the group, rather than relying on a external criteria, such as citizenship or birth location. Now, this implies that nationality too must be based on self-identification, right? The guideline didn't say that before; it said: The person's membership in the list's group is documented by reliable sources. Did you mean to require self-identification for nationality (passport nationality)? I don't think we are currently demanding that; per current practice, it's enough for reliable third-party sources to say that someone is British, or French, or Italian. So I thought that was either an unintentional change, or a change that should be discussed. --JN466 20:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, there is quite a bit of confusion here. The "self identification" text in the proposal (which I recently removed due to the confusion) was an attempt to clarify the following text from the original/current guideline: "The criteria for identifying as an Albanian does not solely depend upon the official citizenship laws of that country – a person could be related to the place by birth, residency, parentage, or by his or her personal admission, considers himself or herself to be an Albanian at heart." I found that original text to be confusing, particularly the slangy phrase " considers himself or herself to be an Albanian at heart.". My attempt to improve that was to translate it to "self identification - not documents - should be the basis". But, as you point out, that is really not what the guideline should be saying. So, my latest revision to the proposed text is to remove it altogether, since it appears to be unnecessary. --Noleander (talk) 20:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that solves that issue. :) Another important difference between your proposed wording and the current wording is --

• Lists based on nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity may include people who are notable for any reason. For example, List of Albanians includes Albanians who are notable for any reason; Vladimir Horowitz (notable as a pianist) is included in the list of gay and lesbian people; and Johnny Cash (notable for his singing) is included in the List of Baptists. (proposed)

versus

• People to be included in a list should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future). For example, lists of atheists doesn't include every individual with a Wikipedia article who happens to be an atheist, because not all of them are notable for their atheism. However, it might well include Sigmund Freud. (current)

For reference, Sigmund Freud is notable as the founder of psychoanalysis, but he was also notable as an atheist; there is at least one book-length study of his atheism, and Freud is, for example, mentioned as a notable atheist in The Cambridge companion to atheism. According to the proposed version, however, editors would not need to demonstrate that Johnny Cash, for example, was in any way notable as a Baptist; they would simply need to find a single reference stating that Cash was a Baptist to be able to include him in List of Baptists. I am reading this correctly, aren't I? It seems like a 180° change compared to the present version. --JN466 10:36, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the wording needs to make it more clear that this is an exception for contentious identifications only. If I want to add a person to List of people from Jersey City, New Jersey, I only need a reference that they were born or lived there. People can currently be included a non-contentious list regardless of the reason for their notability. While the requirements for categories may need to be stronger due to a lack of citations in the category system, looking through our Featured Lists shows that it is not current practice to require related notability for inclusion. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 16:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

JN: You are correct, the proposed wording did change the meaning of the guideline, so I have updated the proposed text to more precisely conform to the original. It now uses the original wording "nationality and ethnicity" and uses the same Albanian example as the original text. --Noleander (talk) 16:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Jim: Your suggestion about "contentious only" is interesting. Let me suggest this: we get consensus on the newer, clearer wording (retaining the original "nationality/Albanian" exception), and update the guideline to include the clearer wording. Then, after that is done, we can consider additional exceptions for "non contentious" lists (college alumni, Jersey City, eagle scouts, etc). Is that a good idea? --Noleander (talk) 16:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I updated the proposed text (green box above) as follows: (1) restricted the exception to nationality/ethnicity (per discussion immediately above with JN); (2) clarified wording even more to leave no ambiguity; and (3) moved the two "exception" sentences up from the bottom to be embedded in the "requirement bullets" so that readers dont have to figure out what the exceptions apply to. --Noleander (talk) 18:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, this is beginning to look pretty good. I have moved the paragraph about people who do not have a WP article to the end of the first bullet point, to keep everything related to such entries together. Is that okay? --JN466 09:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I have also added a sentence mentioning the self-identification requirement for living people at the end. Is that okay? --JN466 09:49, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks great. The only question I would pose is: Should text from the BLPCAT policy should be replicated here? Or is it better to just have a link to BLPCAT and let the reader go there for more info? Some reasons to rely on a link: (1) the BLPCAT has more detail; putting text here may cause reader to incorrectly think this text is a complete description of BLPCAT; (2) The BLPCAT policy may change, rendering this text out-of-date; (3) the BLPCAT is currently undergoing debate now, and may change soon ... so it is better to wait until that dust settles. --Noleander (talk) 11:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the self-ID requirement is worth mentioning; it's been part of BLP policy for as long as the policy has existed, and that is unlikely to change. If any aspect of BLPCAT policy does get revised, we'll just have to revisit this and bring it in line with policy. But to address (1), we could change the order of the sentences, so the link to BLP policy is at the end. I think this might avoid the impression that what little we say summarises BLP policy. I've made that change above; does it look okay to you? --JN466 16:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned about the sentence about people without Wikipedia articles:

"If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability."

It seems to me that this suggests that entries about people with Wikipedia articles are exempt from our verifiability policy. I have no objection to presuming general notability if a Wikipedia article exists, but I think each entry in the list should include a citation supporting the person's list membership (and notability for the list's topic, if relevant). --Avenue (talk) 01:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Avenue: thanks for the feedback. The goal of the proposal is not to change the guideline, but simply to clarify the wording. The text you are commenting upon is intended to replaced the original/current text: "However, individuals in lists who do not have a Wikipedia article, need to have a citation or a Wikipedia link for their connection to the list and for their notability, even if it is notable for a single event or activity.". I think the new text is an improvement. In addition, the new proposal includes the requirement that every "person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources", and I think that addresses the concern you are raising, true? --Noleander (talk) 02:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

We could add a wikilink to WP:BLP1E to the words "famous for a specific event". I am happy with the text as presently proposed. --JN466 17:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we have pretty good consensus on the clarification of the wording, so I've put the proposed green text into the guideline. Let me suggest a new thread below, to discuss the remaining suggestions that were not solely about clarification of wording. --Noleander (talk) 20:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Should "Lists of people" be under "Appropriate topics for lists" section?

Why is "Lists of people" under the "Appropriate topics for lists" section? The "Lists of people" section contains guidance on which persons to include in a list, but does not give guidance on whether the list itself is appropriate. WP has some guidance on appropriate lists of people in another policy page: Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people, so maybe that should be linked-to, and the "Lists of people" moved out to be a stand-alone section? --Noleander (talk) 22:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

People List guideline: include some detail from BLPCAT?

Query: should we include some detail from BLPCAT in the PEOPLELIST guideline (e.g. "religion/orientation must be self-identified" etc)? Or just use the (existing) wikilink? --Noleander (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to replicating some of the BLPCAT policy, but we need to strike a balance. Links are there for a reason, and it is okay to require a reader to click on the link. Also, if the BLPCAT policy changes, any replicated text here would become out-of-date. Plus, readers of this page will not get the nuances and details that are in the BLPCAT iself. On the other hand, if there is one particular BLPCAT rule that is frequently violated in Lists of People then, sure, it is reasonable to emphasize that BLPCAT rule here. --Noleander (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

People List guideline: make exceptions for non-contentious lists (Scouts, Statehood, Alumni)

There are two notability requirements in the PEOPLELIST guideline that must be met:

A) The person must meet the WP notability requirement (for their own article); and

B) The person's membership in the list's group is notable in some way (except lists based on Nationality)

A proposal has been made to KEEP requirement A, and to modify requirement B by adding exceptions, specifically by permitting exceptions for non-contentious lists such as college alumni, Eagle Scouts, and place-of-origin. Possible paths forward:

1. Leave requirement B alone (keep the Nationality exception)
2. Remove the Nationality exception from requirement B
3. Add additional exceptions for some explicitly named list kinds (Eagle Scouts, place-of-origin, college alumni, etc)
4. Keep requirement B, but only for certain kinds of contentious lists (orientation, religion, belief, ethnicity, etc)

--Noleander (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support 3 or 4 - It is important to note that this proposal is keeping Requirement A for notability. It is the other requirement: that a "person's membership in the list's group is notable in some way" which is rather vague, and even a single source that mentions the person's membership in the list's group seems to be sufficient to meet this requirement (in other words: if some biographer or journalist went through all the trouble of noting it, that establishes some kind of notability of the membership). Even for persons that are genuinely not notable in any way for membership in the group's list, the fact is WP people lists do include hundreds, or thousands, of such non-notables. The fact is that 99% of such inclusions are never challenged because they are not contentious. It is only when religion/orientation/ethnicity or similar Lists are involved that challenges occur. So, of these above 4 courses of action, (3) and (4) seem most sensible. I guess (3) is more of a baby-step, and would be more likely to gain consensus. Option (1) doesnt seem quite right: it is not clear to me why Nationality is singled out? If anything, that strikes me as a bit contentious, so I would think Nationality should not be an exception. Or we could just stick with (1) or (2) and retain the status quo, and just rely on (rare) notability challenges, which probably will never happen in the non-contentious lists. The problem with (1) or (2) is that they are flying in the face of reality, and are not reflecting the widespread WP consensus that has been achieved in the Talk pages of scores non-contentious lists. So, I guess (3) or (4) is my recommendation. --Noleander (talk) 20:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support 2 Noleander, you do seem to want to weaken our BLP policy, this isn't the only suggestion you've made like this. Wikipedia probably has a huge number that don't meet WP:VERIFY and wP:RS, do we therefore weaken them? Your suggestion would like everyone who went to a University add their name, everyone who lived in Jersey City, etc. Yes, there are a lot of people on lists who shouldn't be there, and not enough editors looking at these who know or care about our guidelines and policies. That's no reason to dump them. Dougweller (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I've seen your support for the BLP edit notice, hence striking my comments above, although I am concerned that you seem to favor a least common denominator approach. Dougweller (talk) 20:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Doug: could you clarify a bit? You say "Your suggestion would [let] everyone who went to a University add their name, .." . But the proposal (from another editor, not me) is to keep the requirement that all persons in lists must meet WP notability requirements (to have their own article). The proposal is only modifying the requirement that the membership in the list's group is somehow notable. If the proposal is worded poorly, and you mis-understood it, could you reconsider your recommendation? [PS: I tried to clarify the wording of the proposal above]. --Noleander (talk) 20:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Doug: also: could you comment on the distinction between living and dead persons vis-a-vis this proposal? The above proposal is applicable to both living and dead persons. The BLPCAT policy trumps this guideline, of course, and this proposal would not alter the BLPCAT policy in any way. Your comments above seem to be directed at Living persons only. What about dead persons? --Noleander (talk) 21:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it should apply to dead people as well, why shouldn't they have the same protection?. Dougweller (talk) 06:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry Doug, I cannot follow what you are saying. Let's try a concrete example, dead person John Tyler Caldwell in the list List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America). There is a requirement that everyone in that list must meet WP's notability requirement (requirement "A" above) - no one is suggesting changing that requirement. The proposal is to relax the requirement "B" that "the person's membership in the list's group is notable in some way" for non-contentious lists. So, looking at our concrete example: Do you think John Tyler Caldwell meets requirement B? Why or why not? What does it mean (to you) to be "notable for being a member of the Eagle Scouts"? Does it mean that:

• The person's Eagle Scout status figured prominently in their life? or
• The person is notable because of the membership? or
• The person is notable as a Scout? or
• Sources took sufficient note of the Scounthood to document the accomplishment?

The Talk page for the Eagle Scout list has guidance for editors that says a person must meet requirement A, but not requirement B, so that Talk page is in "violation" of the PEOPLELIST guideline. I submit that, to the contrary, it is the guideline that is in violation of the consensus achieved on that, and numerous other, non-contentious list Talk pages (recall: the proposal is only for "non contentious" Lists). --Noleander (talk) 07:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support 4 as it most closely reflects current practice. The clearest way to see our functional consensus is to go through Category:Featured lists and review what is presented as "our best work" in list articles. Noleander makes a valid point above that most of these non-contentious groupings will not be challenged, and I may yet regret even bringing up the point (Streisand effect and all). I would really like to see stronger requirements - only notable entries, entries must be sourced - as we have adopted in WP:WikiProject New Jersey for Notable Resident sections of town articles, and stand alone "People from..." lists. Talk:List of people from Jersey City, New Jersey has a large collection of names that used to be in the main article, but have been removed pending proper sourcing. I don't believe that non-notable people should be in lists any more than they should have articles. This guideline should mirror the language in BLPCAT in terms of only applying to contentious labels. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - Any more input? I'm seeing two !votes for (4); and one !vote for (2), but the latter appears to be based on a mis-understanding of the proposal. --Noleander (talk) 05:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I'd like to mull over this a while. One thing that's going through my mind is that if we are completely inclusionist for lists such as Eagle Scouts, or place of origin, we may end up with lists comprising hundreds or thousands of people. At this point, such lists might actually become less useful to the reader than a list focusing on prominent members of the list category. --JN466 15:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is a concern. Let's say there are 80,000 notable persons with articles in WP, and lets say 300 of those were eagle scouts: then under proposals (4) or (3) all 300 would be candidates for inclusion in the list. But I think that may be a good thing: after all, the encyclopedia - although it is not a collection of indiscriminate information - does need to provide indexing and searching capabilities. The "search" field at the top right is good; but Lists also help with indexing. Think of it as kind of a "keyword" index, where "boy scout" is the keyword. I distinguish Lists from Categories in this regard, because Categories add clutter to the bottom of the person's article, so Categories should be employed more judiciously. So, I think Categories should be restricted more so than lists. But this proposal is limited to Lists only, so it would not impact Categories in any way. And, for living persons, BLPCAT provides additional limitations. --Noleander (talk) 16:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I updated the guideline to implement approach (4), based on the discussion above. --Noleander (talk) 16:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Top of Talk page is formatted incorrectly

The top of this Talk page is formatted incorrectly ... at least on my browser the boxes are the wrong size and shape. If anyone knows how to fix it, that would be appreaciated. --Noleander (talk) 16:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

What browser are you using?--Yaksar (let's chat) 21:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Do redlinks require multiple references to be included in a list of people?

Is there consensus that redlinks, in order to be included in a list of people, require multiple references in order not to be deleted? I was surprised to find that a careful reading of the present guideline seems to demand this, since it seems to me to go beyond common sense. (Thanks to User:Amsaim for pointing out this consequence to me.) What do people think? Dsp13 (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You mean where it says "reliable sources" in the plural? I see why it is a possible reading, but I doubt it is the intended reading. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree completely with Charles.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Please note that the requirements for inclusion into a stand-alone-list are found in WP:LISTPEOPLE - this guideline lists three criteria for inclusion. The first criteria states that "...The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement...". For example, if the list is about writers, WP:AUTHOR and WP:BASIC (both of them are subsections of Wikipedia notability requirement) should be fulfilled in order to establish notability. Both WP:AUTHOR and WP:BASIC use quantitative words: "...A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources..." & "...The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors...". Amsaim (talk) 22:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• There are two possible list cases here:
  • One where the list could potentially include many many more people but has been decided by consensus to only include those that are notable (eg "List of people from Smalltown, USA"). Here, we mean the person is clearly notable by WP's standards, and thus would have an article, so redlinks are never allowed.
  • One where the list is immediately limited to only a discrete subset of people, such as "List of mayors of Smalltown, USA". Here, to be properly complete, there may be unlinked or redlinked names on the list. The guideline is meant to imply that at least one reliable source is given to identify the person as being on that list, but does not require multiple sources. --MASEM (t) 23:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Masem's first bullet point, I don't think the intent is a person needs a wiki article in order to prove notability, it's RS that prove notability. So IMHO, just because nobody's bothered to write an article about a notable person, doesn't mean that the person is not notable. Robman94 (talk) 15:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• IMHO we cannot state that redlinks require multiple references to be included in a list of people. It depends on the type of list and on common sense. As a general rule we can ask for a single ref, which following main exceptions:
  • for closed lists (as the abovementioned "List of mayors from Smalltown, USA") we may not require one ref on each entry, but it should be enough to have a single ref which states where the list is take from,
  • on the contrary for open lists of doubious nature (as list of ethnicity of people) we may request multiple references, and sometime even on people with own article, in case that the property for which one is on the list is not referred to in the Article. A ntv (talk) 11:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Lists of people should always be referenced - every single entry. There is a lot of insidious vandalism that goes on by adding people to articles like the example of "people from Smalltown, USA" that can be difficult to detect. I often revert per BRD any such addition that is made without a source. Additionally, providing at least one reference when adding a redlink to such a list at least gives other editors a starting point to make the redlink blue. If you cannot start the article yourself, at least as a stub, then give your fellow editors a little help to get it done. Redlinks are only supposed to be temporary. Plus, making a suggestion of adding a person to a list, and providing a source, can always be done on the talk page. Why the rush to get the redlink included in the list article? I also agree that for contentious labels, especially on BLPs, multiple sources may be required by local consensus from a Wikiproject or at the list article itself. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 13:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

sorry I meant "list of mayors of Smallville". I refer to close lists like lists of kings or mayors or patriarchs where for completeness it is required to add people even if without own article. For this kind of lists we cannot ask for a ref for each single entry but it is the list itself that needs to be refereced with at least one good ref.A ntv (talk) 13:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with ntv that there isn't and shouldn't be a blanket requirement for multiple references. That would be non-sensical. If we have a good source, one ref should be sufficient, as with every fact in wikipedia. Really, now -- if it is sourced to Britannica, we need to also source it to another source? Non-sensical, IMHO. Where I disagree with ntv is his view that you can just say at the top of the list "here is a ref that applies to everything below this header". That does not work, as I've pointed out to ntv elsewhere, because ntv can't stop vandal X from adding Bullshit Entry Y below the header 2 minutes later. That's why the requirement is that when a ref is used in a wiki -- where others than ntv edit the list, including the bad guys -- he should put his ref (when he has a redlink) after each entry. And really -- it can't be all that difficult for him, now can it? Benefit far outweighs the cost.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• I was going to say that my preference would be not to see any redlinks in lists of people: if they're so notable, make an article first, then include it in the lists. It's an easier standard to maintain. But then I read Masem's comment, and I realized that there are a few exceptional lists (such as winners of a notable annual award) where there is a small and well-defined set of people who should all be included for completeness. In those rare and exceptional cases, the names within the list should be reliably sourced, but as long as there's some notability for the list itself then the individual names on the list might not be notable — they should be either redlinked or unlinked accordingly. And I wouldn't require multiple sources, just as we don't usually require multiple sources for other individual facts within longer articles. For most of our lists, though, I'd prefer to see only blue, and I'd prefer at least one reliable source documenting that each bluelink belongs on the list (either as a footnote on the individual link, or in the form of a standard reference that documents the whole list). Making editors open up and read through the bluelinked article to find the source for inclusion is too indirect. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria - Requiring blue links

I know the question of whether a list can/should limit inclusion to items with existing articles (to demonstrate that the listed items are themselves notable) has been raised before (with the consensus being that it is OK, but not mandatory, to have this limitation)... and I seem to remember a guideline that addressed this topic. Can anyone point me to where it is discussed? Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:LISTPEOPLE gives three criteria for including a person, including notability. That would, IMO, require multiple sources (or a bluelink). Otherwise, "List of Actors from California" would include every would-be "actor" interviewed as a witness in a newspaper interview after the coffee shop they work in is robbed: "Joe Blow, an actor from Pasadina who works as a server, said the gunman..." In other words, they should be notable, as demonstrated by a bluelink or cites sufficient to create a stub if someone wanted to. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Please see the on-going discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Redlinks_in_lists_and_dab_pages. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

• I believe that either a bluelink or one or more appropriate refs are required. As to the point that Summer and I disagree, whether one good ref is sufficient, some discussion has been had, with different views stated. But if one looks at the lists of people from nations (most of which I have edited at this point, I would guess), one would find it to in practice to be quite rare to see more than one ref for a redlink. Two unconvincing refs are not superior to one good ref, so I think the effort to have more than one ref is misplaced. And, would needlessly encumber articles already laden with in some cases 2-300 refs or more. More to the point, redlinks have abounded without refs -- those should be deleted. I've been making a push in that regard, but help would be appreciated. Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 15:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this discussion is best centralized at the Village pump (linked above). Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar, are you looking for WP:LSC? I re-organized it a while back, but it's been in the guideline for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Naming conventions for landform related lists

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mountains#Naming_convention_for_lists has a discussion on what the naming convention should be for lists of mountains in a country or a political subdivision thereof (e.g. province/state). A few of us have noticed a discrepancy in the way current list articles are named. For example, should it be List of mountains of Foo or List of mountains in Foo? In the project discussion, droll mentioned that he discovered 250 articles using "of Foo" while 151 articles used "in Foo". I think the "of Foo" is being used when editors think it should follow the same naming conventions for landform categories (i.e. Category:Mountains of Foo). However, I think others feel it should use "in Foo" because the "double of" just seems to be awkward English. Since this naming convention should also include other landforms besides mountains (e.g. lakes and rivers), I have brought this discussion up to a "higher" level (and I couldn't find anything specific to this issue in the archives). RedWolf (talk) 23:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with RedWolf. "List of mountains of Foo" is awkward, because of the double "of". I prefer "in Foo". —hike395 (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

• Regardless of the above: 'of' is used for naturally created objects; 'in' is used for man-made objects. Do no confuse the two. Hmains (talk) 05:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Hmains. Could you clarify? Do you mean in standard English usage, or in Wikipedia? If the latter, members of the Mountain WikiProject could not find it in the WP namespace. Could you supply a reference or a link? Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I strongly support mountains in Foo, but I think having a standard is more important than the words used. –droll [chat] 16:18, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of categories but list names often follow the same convention. See Wikipedia:Category names#Landforms and Wikipedia:Category names#Manufactured objects. See Category:Landforms of the United States for example. It would seem odd to have lists named in a different pattern than their categories. Hmains (talk) 16:56, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

List article titles are different from category names. By WP:SAL, list article titles usually start with "List of", while categories never start with anything like "Category of". To me, the three choices are:

1. Use "List of mountains of Foo" (awkward, matches category names, matches List article titles)
2. Use "List of mountains in Foo" (not awkward, doesn't match category names, matches List article titles)
3. Use "Mountains of Foo" (not awkward, matches category names, doesn't match List article titles)

It doesn't look like we can have all three. I prefer (2) followed by (3). —hike395 (talk) 17:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

LISTCOMPANY

A new section has been added to this page at WP:LISTCOMPANY. I'm not certain that it's such a good idea.

Effectively, the section says that editors are not permitted to name a company or organization in a clearly relevant, clearly verifiable list unless that organization also qualifies for a complete article entirely about itself.

So imagine that you're working on a List of churches in <some town famous for its churches>. It's a small town, and there are a dozen churches. Nine of them are somehow notable—perhaps historically important buildings, or famous for a series of scandals, or a key example of some trend, or something. The other three are not notable; nobody outside of the town pays any attention to them, although a passing mention in the local newspaper can be cited to prove that they exist.

This rule says that you may not mention these last three churches in the list. Even though there is plenty of room on the page, you are required to present an incomplete list that names only three-quarters of the churches in town, because only three-quarters of the churches are notable (=qualify for an article on Wikipedia entirely about the church).

I don't think this is a good idea. On large lists, this might be an excellent rule, but I do not think that it scales (down) well at all, and it contradicts one of the standard list selection criteria, which is the ability to make a complete list (that isn't too long). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

mm, fair enough, in adding the section I didn't consider that. I think such a section is certainly needed, but we can talk about the content. Now I think notability is a good starting point for inclusion, but we could perhaps define circumstances where notability is not required? For the time being, I've added "Companies or organizations which do not meet the notability requirement may be included by consensus." Rd232 ^talk 21:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

That works for me.

The usual problem, of course, is a list that is far too long to be useful, so I think your original dealt with the most common situation, and now we've provided room for the less common situation. Of course, if anyone else has an opinion, I'd be happy to hear it, but the revised version sufficiently addresses my concerns. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• I removed the new text again as it was inserted again without consensus. This violates what WP lists are about and leaves no opening for improvement by interested editors who, one seeing something in WP, think they are can do better and add the results of their efforts. Getting 'consensus' on every item added to a list just means that any editor can remove every redlinked item from the list that they don't agree with and point to this manual as their justification. Fruitless, waste of time for WP. Hmains (talk) 02:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
  • It was "inserted again without consensus" because I want a bloody section on companies. I don't care enormously about the content, I wrote what makes sense to me, and seemed a reasonable basis for clarifying how company lists work. Policy follows practice, I wasn't trying to change practice. So I have reinserted the section again now, but weakened it to the point of requiring no more than a reliable source for redlinked companies. If even that's too much for you, then replace the section with "DO WHAT YOU BLOODY LIKE". Just leave the section and shortcut in place, because it would be useful for editors to know that they can "DO WHAT THEY BLOODY LIKE", if that is the practice. Rd232 ^talk 03:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I'm tired and irritated for unrelated RL reasons. To clarify: what prompted the creation of the section is the need to have somewhere to point people for guidance from the companies list editnotice. There doesn't seem to be any such guidance, so I created some. I'm not trying to change practice, merely describe it in a clear and simple way that people can quickly grasp. Rd232 ^talk 03:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmains, I don't think that I agree with your interpretation. I don't see any evidence that this section requires the kind of "consensus" that means 'explicit written permission given in advance'. I think it requires only the normal sort of WP:CONSENSUS, the "normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia" in which "any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus"

And, speaking of consensus, you might want to consider what Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Substantive_changes says about reverting changes in guidelines on the grounds of "no consensus". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

There was no consensus, regardless, for the first and second changes. If someone edits without consenses, they can expect to be reversed. Getting upset about the process only means they are pushing their own agenda ("I", "I", "I", etc) and don't really care about others and consensus. Discussion on policy pages usually results in someone proposing the text they want to insert/change and having that text discussed by interested parties and at least not radically disagreed with prior to placing the text into the policy. Hmains (talk) 17:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, it simply doesn't matter if there was "no consensus" before a bold edit; "consensus" is not spelled "written permission obtained in advance", even on advice pages. The actual policy explicitly permits editors to make WP:BOLD changes on guidelines like this.

It does matter if the bold changes are wrong or unhelpful. Do you think that the current version is wrong? Do you think it is unhelpful? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• To add something to a guideline, there should be a problem to solved or an opportunity to be taken. I don't see that these were offerred as justification for this change and don't see what is the benefit. Also, the first sentence makes no sense and so cannot guide anyone: "A company or organization may be included in a list of companies or organizations whether or not it meets the Wikipedia notability requirement, unless a given list specifically requires this." One, a list cannot require the override of a guideline; two, 'requires this' refers to nothing that is recognizable. Thanks Hmains (talk) 16:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so I interpret this as saying that you think the addition unnecessary and confusing:

In terms of "unnecessary", I understand you to be saying that you were previously unaware that anyone was having any problems with determining which companies to include on lists of companies. Do I understand that correctly?

In terms of "confusing", I understand you to be saying that you cannot figure out the difference between "notable", which means "qualifies for an entire Wikipedia article exclusively dedicated to the company", and "permitted to be included in the 'List of ____ companies', even if Wikipedia doesn't want a whole article about that company". Do I understand that correctly?

Finally, you seem to think that this guideline is somehow less of a guideline than that guideline, and that listing the name of a non-notable company in the 'List of ____ companies' somehow transgresses the notability guidelines. Do I understand that correctly? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not respond to hostile and/or argumentative comments. Hmains (talk) 02:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica^Tea? 00:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Additions of red-linked, unreferenced names to list

Hello. I'm having an issue with an editor who has repeatedly adds names to a list of persons, where the names are red-linked and the people do not have any refs at all at the end of their entries (in which their inclusion in the list is reflected as appropriate). The discussion is here.

(It is not, as explained at the discussion, sufficient to have a ref elsewhere in the article, because the names on the list change, and one cannot otherwise know to whom the ref applies).--Epeefleche (talk) 20:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not the place for such a question. However, I will take a look. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No question was posed.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)