Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists

For instructions on markup formatting for a list, see Wikipedia:Lists.

For discussion of lists that are contained within articles, see Wikipedia:Embedded list.

To see all the stand-alone lists currently used in Wikipedia, go to List of topic lists.

Stand-alone lists and "lists of links" are pages that contain primarily a list. The list usually consist of links to articles in a particular subject area, such as people or places or a timeline of events. The title of these entries always begin with the phrase list of or timeline of.

Format of the lists

There are several formats currently used on Wikipedia. They include:

1. alphabetized lists such as the List of economics topics
2. categorized or hierarchical lists such as List of marketing topics or List of finance topics
3. annotated lists such as the List of business theorists or Production, costs, and pricing, or the embedded lists of smart drugs in Nootropics.
4. chronological lists such as Recent deaths and List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction
5. glossaries are a type of annotated list, where the annotations are definitions of the list's entries. Example: Glossary of philosophical isms

The best format to use depends on which of the uses a list is being put to in any specific instance. If the list is being used by someone familiar with the subject, then an hierarchical list would be preferred. If used by someone not familiar with the topic, then an alphabetical list would be more useful. Probably the best compromise is an annotated hierarchical list. This is helpful to both groups. Then there is the question of whether the list is being used primarily for navigational purposes or 'pedia development purposes. There is also the question of whether the user is looking for a specific topic, a group of related topics, or just browsing.

Currently there is no single recommended format.

Introductory sentence

It is useful to start each list with a sentence describing the content and scope of the list. For complete lists:

This is a complete list of Xs.

For partial/selected lists:

This is a selected list of Xs. Xs listed here should be (selection criteria).

When the list includes a short introduction and a longer list, it may be advisible to include the "See also" with related lists and articles" after the introduction, but before the list.

Naming conventions

The name or title of the list should simply be List of _ _ (for example list of Xs). Do not use a title like: Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, nor list of all Xs.

A list of lists of X could be at lists of X or list of X: e.g., lists of people, list of countries.

People are either list of Finns or list of French people, preferring List of _ people. USA folk are a special case; list of United States people redirects to lists of Americans, which is a disambiguation page containing, amongst other things, lists by US state. (Special treatment is necessary because American is ambiguous.)

Poets listed by language are at, for example List of German language poets - see list of poets.

Fictional creatures at list of fictional dogs, etc., with real-life examples at list of historical dogs. However for dragons and other fictional species, you can stick to the simple list of dragons.

If the list is part of a longer article, the page will use a regular article name, e.g. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, see Lists (embedded lists) for more.

For multi-page lists (aka "Long Lists"), see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists).

Selection criteria

Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles. As such, lists need to abide by Wikipedia content policies of Verifiability, No original research, and Neutral point of view, as well as include a lead section that presents unambiguous statements of membership criteria based on definitions made by reputable sources. This is particularly important in the case of difficult or contentious topics. Beware of those cases in which the definitions themselves are disputed. Many lists on Wikipedia have been created without any membership criteria, and editors are left to guess about what or who should be included only from the name of the list. Even if it might "seem obvious" what qualifies for membership in a list, explicit is better than implicit. Non-obvious characteristics of the list, for instance regarding the list structure, should also be explained in the lead section.

When deciding what to include on 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?

Ideally each entry on the list should have a Wikipedia article but this is not required if it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. The one exception is for list articles that are created explicitly because the listed items do not warrant independent articles: an example of this is List of minor characters in Dilbert.

If a complete list is feasible in 32K, and could be useful, go for a complete list. Otherwise, you need to make sure section editing is enabled or you may want to build a selected list.

Chronological ordering

Chronological lists, including all timelines and lists of works, should always be in earliest-to-latest chronological order. Special cases which specifically require frequent daily additions, such as Recent deaths, 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 categories. 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 he 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 colours of apple sauce", be prepared to explain why you feel this list contributes to the state of human knowledge.

Lists of people

Selected lists of people 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, list of Atheists doesn't include every individiual with a Wikipedia article who happens to be an Atheist, becasue not all of them are notable for their Atheism. However, it might well include Sigmund Freud. See also Wikipedia:Notability (people).

List of Elbonians would include persons who are famous in any category and who belong to Elbonia. The criteria for identifying as an Elbonian may not depend on the official citizenship laws of that country - the person could be related to the place by birth, domicile, parents, or by his or her personal admission, consider himself or herself an Elbonian at heart.

Lists of lists

Wikipedia has many lists of lists articles; list of lists is one such high-level article. 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.

Categories, lists, and series boxes

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

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.

Some people put the following sentence at the end of list pages:

If you click on Related changes, you will see the list of all recent edits to this page as well as edits to all pages to which this page links.

This practice is controversial and actively discouraged by many. It is claimed that all instructional matters belong in a separate part of Wikipedia, that introducing them on other pages just adds unnecessary clutter, and that self-references should be avoided if possible. Others claim that because 99% of users do not study the multitude of instructional pages in detail, this notice makes the encyclopedia more user-friendly.

See also

• Wikipedia:Listcruft