Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Stand-alone lists, like other articles, are subject to Wikipedia's Core content policies. They should be used for appropriate topics, and have clear selection criteria. A well-written lead section is important, especially if there is little or no other non-list content. |
Stand-alone lists (also referred to as list articles) are
In the interests of centralization of advice, this guideline page includes content guidelines, listed first; style guidelines particular to stand-alone lists, at § Style; and naming conventions, at § Titles.
Notability
Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a
There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") or what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists, although
List contents
Content policies
Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's
General formats of list articles
There are a number of formats, both generalized and specialized, that are currently used on Wikipedia, for list articles.
- Alphabetized lists, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics articles (0–9) and Index of economics articles, as well as simple alphabetized lists without letter subheadings.
- Annotated lists, such as List of bicycle manufacturing companies.
- Chronological lists, such as List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction. (Lists whose titles begin with "timeline of" are always chronological.)
- Sortable lists, which are formatted as tables, such as List of social networking services.
- Subheading-structured lists (i.e., categorized or hierarchical lists), such as List of cat breeds, Lists of mathematics topics and Lists of philosophers.
Specialized list articles
- Outlines, from the general (Outline of mathematics) to the somewhat specific (Outline of algebraic structures), are part of Wikipedia's Contents navigation system, and are indexed at Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines. A type of tree structure, they are hierarchies of subjects organized as a structured list including headings, subheadings, and list items (usually bulleted, and preferably annotated). For more information, see outline (list), and WikiProject Outlines.
- Indices, alphabetized lists of articles on a given subject, are part of Wikipedia's Contents navigation system, and are listed at Wikipedia:Contents/Indices. Examples include Index of psychology articles and Index of Syria-related articles. For more information, see index (publishing), and WikiProject Indexes.
- Timelines, using a standardized layout to present a chronological summary of a topic; examples include Timeline of architectural styles and Graphical timeline of the Big Bang. There is a special MediaWiki timeline syntax, but most Wikipedia timeline list articles do not presently use this recently introduced feature. For more information, see timeline.
- command structure.
- discographies. Bibliographies are a list of relevant references for a subject area, including books, journal articles, and web articles; discographies are a listing of all recordings on which a musician or singer features, or may be compiled based on genre or record label.
- Glossaries, using one of several glossary formatting styles, are usually alphabetized lists of terms with annotations defining them in an encyclopedic way; examples include Glossary of philosophy and Glossary of pinball terms. The format can also be used for some other purposes. Non-encyclopedic glossary material may be migrated to Wiktionary . For more information, see glossary, and WikiProject Glossaries.
- Set index articles – document a set of items that share the same (or a similar) name. They are different from disambiguation pages in that they are full-fledged articles meant to document multiple subjects, while disambiguation pages are for navigation purposes only. Not all set index articles are lists.
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 size and scope 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.
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 other than the creator of the list. A list should be defined so that a reasonable number of readers seek it out.
Some Wikipedians feel that some topics are unsuitable by dint of the nature of the topic. Following the policy spelled out in
Lists of people
Because the subject of many lists is broad, a person is typically included in a list of people only if both of the following requirements are met:
- The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement.
- The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources.
There are some common exceptions to the typical notability requirement:
- If the person is BIO1E.
- In a few cases, such as lists of people holding notable positions, the names of non-notable people may be included in a list that is largely made up of notable people, for the sake of completeness.
In other cases, editors choose even more stringent requirements, such as already having an article written (not just qualifying for one), or being notable specifically for reasons related to membership in this group. This is commonly used to control the size of lists that could otherwise run to thousands of people, such as the List of American film actresses.
For instance, articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who verifiably attended the school. (Wikipedia editors who would like to be identified as an alumnus/alumna should instead use the categories intended for this purpose, e.g. Category:Wikipedians by alma mater.) On the other hand, a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses can contain the names of all the people who held this post, not just those who are independently notable.
Special care must be taken when adding living persons to lists based on
Please document the list selection criteria on the talk page of the list.
Note that the guidance in this section is particularly applicable to people but applies to lists in general, not only lists of people.
Lists of subtaxa
Wikipedia articles on organisms, such as plants and animals (whether extant or extinct), can sometimes be dominated by long lists of subtaxa. When the article has not developed beyond
Lists of companies and organizations
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. If the company or organization does not have an existing article in Wikipedia, a citation to an independent, reliable source should be provided to establish its membership in the list's group.
Lists of lists
Wikipedia has many articles that are primarily or entirely lists of other lists (see List of lists of lists). 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, and also include it in Category:Lists of lists.
- See also Wikipedia:Lists of lists for an informal essay on content, purpose, naming etc. of lists of lists.
Lists of words
Glossaries – alphabetical, topical lists of terms, rather than of notable entities – are encyclopedic when the entries they provide are primarily informative explorations of the listed terminology, pertaining to a
Because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, many ideas for glossaries, in which entries would be little more than dictionary definitions ("dicdefs"), may be better suited to Wiktionary. Glossaries that do not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria or not-a-dictionary policy should be migrated to Wiktionary at wikt:Category:English glossaries. Wiktionary also freely forks Wikipedia's encyclopedic glossaries for redevelopment to Wiktionary's purposes and standards, in its Appendix: namespace.
Some other, non-glossary lists of words can also yield an encyclopedic page, such as List of English words containing Q not followed by U, the condition being that reliable secondary sources for the topic can be cited.
Selection criteria
Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by
When establishing membership criteria for a list, ask yourself if any of the following are true:
- If this person/thing/etc. weren't 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?
As
Common selection criteria
Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of objective criteria:
- Every entry meets the promotion; and keeps individual lists to a size that is manageable for readers.
- 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 Dilbert characters or List of paracetamol brand names. Before creating a stand-alone list, consider carefully whether such lists would be better placed within a "parent" article. (Note that this criterion is never used for living people.)
- 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, Listed buildings in Rivington. If reliable sources indicate that a complete list would include the names of ten notable buildings and two non-notable buildings, then you are not required to omit the two non-notable buildings. However, if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list.
"Creation guide" lists—lists devoted to a large number of
Citing sources
Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including
When an inline citation is not required by a sourcing policy and editors choose to name more sources than strictly required, then either
Style
| This guideline section is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this section should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
| Manual of Style (MoS) |
|---|
This section presents some particular style and layout considerations specifically for stand-alone lists, in addition to the general WP:Manual of Style/Lists, which pertains to all lists on Wikipedia.
Lead
A stand-alone list should begin with a
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
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
Bulleted and numbered lists
- Do not use lists if a passage is read easily as plain paragraphs.
- Use proper wikimarkup- or template-based list code (see WP:Manual of Style/Lists and Help:List).
- Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the wiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.
- Use numbers rather than bullets only if:
- a need to refer to the elements by number may arise;
- the sequence of the items is critical; or
- the numbering has some independent meaning, for example in a listing of musical tracks.
- Use the same grammatical form for all elements in a list, and do not mix sentences and sentence fragments as elements.
- When the elements are complete sentences, each one is formatted with sentence case (i.e., the initial letter is capitalized) and a final period.
- When the elements are sentence fragments, the list is typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon. When these elements are titles of works, they retain the original capitalization of the titles. Other elements are formatted consistently in either sentence case or lower case. Each element should end with a semicolon, with a period instead for the last element. Alternatively (especially when the elements are short), no final punctuation is used at all.
Titles
| This consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
 | This section may need to better summarize its corresponding main article. ) |
A common practice is to entitle list articles as List of ___ (for example List of Xs). If (as is often the case), the list has multiple columns and so is in layout table form, the name or title List of Xs is still preferable to Table of Xs or Comparison of Xs (though the latter may be appropriate for articles that are actual tables of data comparing numerous features, e.g. Comparison of Linux distributions).
A list of lists of X could be at either Lists of X or at List of X: e.g., Lists of books, List of sovereign states; the plural form is more prevalent.
The title is not expected to contain a complete description of the
- People: People by nationality are either List of United States people redirects to Lists of Americans which contains, amongst other things, lists by US state. (Special treatment is necessary because Americanis 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. In all relevant lists, people is far preferred to alternatives such as persons or individuals.
- Language: Poets and authors listed by language are at, for example List of German-language poets .
- Fiction and real life: List of fictional dogs is a list of fictional creatures, whereas List of individual dogs is a list with real-life examples. Note that the lead section of each list explains what criterion or criteria that list's entries meet.
Three other special lists types have their own naming patterns. Glossaries are usually titled Glossary of X or Glossary of X terms, though if they contain substantial non-list prose about the nature or history of terminology relating to the topic, as well as a glossary list, a title such as X terminology may be more appropriate. Timelines are named in the form Timeline of X or Graphical timeline of X. Outlines are named Outline of X or Outline of Xs.
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:Categories, lists, and navigation templates
- Wikipedia:Featured lists
- Wikipedia:Handling trivia
- Wikipedia:Listcruft
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Embedded lists
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Road junction lists
- Wikipedia:Set index articles
- Wikipedia:Timeline standards
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists
- Help:List
- Help:Table
- Portal:Contents/Outlines