Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists

Stand-alone lists and "lists of links" are articles that primarily consist of a list or a group of lists, linking to articles or lists in a particular subject area, such as a timeline of events or people and places. The titles of these articles usually begin with "list of" or "timeline of". Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles; thus, they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research and neutral point of view.

General formatting

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

1. Alphabetized lists or indexes, such as List of mathematics articles (0–9) or Index of economics articles, as well as simple alphabetized lists without letter subheadings.
2. Annotated lists, such as List of business theorists, or List of bicycle manufacturing companies.
3. Subheading-structured lists (i.e., categorized or hierarchical lists), such as List of cat breeds, Lists of mathematics topics or Lists of philosophers.
4. Chronological lists, such as Deaths in 2007 or List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction. (Lists whose titles begin with "timeline of" are always chronological.)
5. Sortable lists, which are formatted as tables, such as List of social networking websites‎.

Specialized list articles

1. Timelines, using the timeline syntax, such as Timeline of architectural styles or Graphical timeline of the Big Bang. Most "timeline of" list articles do not use this specialized type of timeline syntax.
2. Glossaries, such as Glossary of philosophy or Glossary of pinball terms, where the annotations are definitions of the list's entries. Wiktionary is also compiling glossaries (in Appendix: namespace), and glossaries found on Wikipedia should best be transwikied to wikt:Category:Glossaries

Lead and selection criteria

See also: Notability for lists of people

Lists should begin with a lead section that summarizes any necessary background information, provides encyclopedic context, links to other relevant articles, and makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected. This section, not the page's name, defines the subject of the list. Ideally, the selection criteria will be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources.

Future editors should not be left to guess about what or who should be included from the title of the page. Even if the selection criteria might seem obvious to you, an explicit standard is helpful to others. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), membership criteria should be based on reliable sources. Non-obvious characteristics of the list (for instance, regarding the list structure) should also be explained in the lead section.

When establishing membership criteria for a list, ask yourself:

• If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance?
• Would I expect to see this person or thing on a list of X?
• Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X?

Common selection criteria

• Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Most of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of editorial judgment.
• Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria. These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of minor characters in Dilbert or List of paracetamol brand names.
• Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (less than 32K) and could be useful (e.g., for navigation) or interesting to readers. The inclusion of items must be supported by reliable sources. For example, if reliable sources indicate that a complete list would include the names of ten businesses and two non-notable businesses, then you are not required to omit the two non-notable businesses. However, if a complete list would include hundreds of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus the list.

"Creation guide" lists—lists devoted to a large number of redlinked (unwritten) articles—don't belong in the main namespace. Write these in your userspace, or in a Wikiproject's space, or list the missing articles at Wikipedia:Requested articles.

When the list includes a short introduction and a longer list, it may be advisible to include a "Related lists," "Related articles" or "Related lists and articles" section after the introduction and before the list that shows related lists and articles.

Naming conventions

Main page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions

The name or title of the list should simply be List of ___ (for example list of Xs). A list of lists of X could be at lists of X or list of X: e.g., lists of people, list of sovereign states. If (as is often the case), the list has multiple columns and so is in table form, the name or title List of Xs is still preferable to Table of Xs or Comparison of Xs. For multi-page lists (aka "long lists"), see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists).

The title is not expected to contain a complete description of the list's subject. Many lists are not intended to contain every possible member, but this does not need to be explained in the title itself. For example, the correct choice is List of people from the Isle of Wight, not "List of people who were born on or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight and about whom Wikipedia has an article". Instead, the detailed criteria for inclusion should be described in the lead, and a reasonably concise title should be chosen for the list. In general, words like notable, famous, noted, prominent, etc. should not be included in the title of a list article. Similarly, avoid titles like Xs and list of all Xs.

• People: People by nationality are either list of Finns or lists of French people, preferring List of ___ people. USA folk are a special case: list of United States people redirects to lists of Americans which contains, amongst other things, lists by US state. (Special treatment is necessary because American is ambiguous.) Note, however, that lists of people organized by individual city should be at List of people from (city), rather than "List of (city) people".
• Language: Poets and authors listed by language are at, for example List of German-language poets—see list of poets.
• Fiction and real life: List of fictional dogs is a list of fictional creatures, whereas list of dogs is a list with real-life examples. Note that the lead section of both lists explain what their contents.

Set index articles do not need to be titled with "list of" unless there is also a disambiguation page using that title. For example, Dodge Charger is a list of cars named Dodge Charger, but does not need to be titled "List of cars named Dodge Charger". However, since Signal Mountain is a disambiguation page, the related set index article is at List of peaks named Signal Mountain.

Chronological ordering

Chronological lists, including all timelines and lists of works, should be in earliest-to-latest chronological order. Special cases which specifically require frequent daily additions, such as Deaths in 2010, may use reverse chronological order for temporary convenience, although these articles should revert to non-reverse order when the article has stabilized, such as Deaths in 2003.

Appropriate topics for lists

The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination. To keep the system of lists useful, we must limit the number of lists.

Lists that are too general or too broad in scope have little value, unless they are split into sections. For example a list of brand names would be far too long to be of value. If you have an interest in listing brand names, try to limit the scope in some way (by product category, by country, by date, etc.). This is best done by sectioning the general page under categories. When entries in a category have grown enough to warrant a fresh list-article, they can be moved out to a new page, and be replaced by a See [[new list]] link. When all categories become links to lists, the page becomes a list repository or "List of lists" and the entries can be displayed as a bulleted list. For reference see Lists of people, which is made up of specific categorical lists.

Lists that are too specific are also a problem. The "list of one-eyed horse thieves from Montana" will be of little interest to anyone (except the person making the list).

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

Lists of people

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.

Lists of lists

Wikipedia has many list of lists articles. On lists of lists, nonexistent lists should not be included. That is, all the links in a "lists of lists" should be active (blue, not red).

Lists of lists should also be available as alphabetical categories. Put lists that have actual content in one of the subcategories under Category:Lists.

Lists of words

Some lists of words – glossaries, as opposed to lists of notable entities – may be better suited to Wiktionary, in accordance with Wikipedia is not a dictionary, particularly if it is just a list of words, with little comment. Some lists can yield an encyclopedic page, such as List of English words containing Q not followed by U, the condition being that notable secondary sources for the topic can be cited.

Glossaries (annotated topical lists) have historically been compiled on Wikipedia. The condition is that the topic of the glossary in question can be established as notable within Wikipedia's usual criteria (WP:N). Glossaries that do not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria should be migrated to Wiktionary's wikt:Category:Glossaries.

Categories, lists and navigation templates

Main page: Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates

As useful as lists are, certain lists may get out of date quickly; for these types of subjects, a category may be a more appropriate method of organization. See Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates for more information on the appropriate times to use lists versus categories.

Taxonomic links

For many genera there may be a considerable number of species. For the smaller genera a taxobox may suffice but for the more speciose including genera such as Anopheles it is probably better to move these into their own page. The bulk of the page will be taken up by the list. Such lists do qualify as encyclopedic: for many of these genera there are specialized monographs to assist in the identification of these species.

Lists and the "Related changes" link

A very useful Wikipedia feature is to use the "Related changes" link when on a list page. This will show you all the changes made to the links contained in the list. If the page has a link to itself, this feature will also show you the changes made to the list itself.

See also

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists
• Wikipedia:Listcruft
• Help:List
• Help:Table