Wikipedia:Featured and good topic criteria/Overview topics
An overview topic is a
Example 1: Solar System
Below is the Solar System featured topic, which is a good example of an overview topic. There are literally hundreds of articles within the scope of the topic. Attempting to include them all in the topic would be extremely difficult and of limited value. Instead, an overview topic is used. Notice that Pluto is not in the Solar System topic, even though it is within the scope of the topic. However, the topic is still complete because Pluto falls within the scope of another article in the Solar System topic, Dwarf planets. In this example, editors have actually gone one step further and created the Dwarf planets featured subtopic.
Overview topic
Subtopics
Example 2: Michigan State University
Here is a hypothetical example of what a university overview topic might look like, as well as three hypothetical subtopics. As with the example above, trying to create a topic with every article related to a university would be almost impossible, but virtually all other articles about the university would fall within the scope of at least one of the non-lead articles in the overview topic. As such, this topic would be considered complete.
Note that the Michigan State University student life article does not currently exist, but it would be very natural to create it, as can be seen by its well-defined subtopic. Also note that articles can be in multiple subtopics, as demonstrated by Michigan State University Libraries.
Michigan State University used to be a featured topic, but was demoted due to comprehensiveness concerns.
Overview topic
Example subtopics
- College of Natural Science
- Residential College in Arts & Humanities
- College of Veterinary Medicine
- Libraries
- Michigan State University Press
- National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
- National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
- Observatory
- Pavilion
- Red Cedar River
- The Rock
- Wharton Center for Performing Arts