Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of published lists

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Never mind the motives for creating this article or for filing this AfD, there is a clear consensus to delete. JohnCD (talk) 22:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of published lists

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This article was created for a WP:POINTy reason. So I am going to AfD it for an equally WP:POINTless reason, as it fails to meet WP:TPA Martin451 (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages because it is a redirect to the above article:[reply]

List of for-fun lists (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Martin451 (talk) 23:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Martin451 (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of the discussion that led to the creation of this list but please provide a valid argument for deletion. Considering WP:IMPERFECT and WP:POINT, I see no choice but to suggest a procedural keep. — Rankiri (talk) 23:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The list is not notable in itself, there are no published sources that lead to this list of lists. It is also original research. Martin451 (talk) 23:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: WP:SALAT. An indiscriminate listcruft with no clearly defined inclusion criteria. — Rankiri (talk) 23:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a great idea. We have lots of list articles, and provided they are sourced, I see no problems. Gamaliel (talk) 23:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One doesn't need WP:SALAT to realize that lists that are too general or too broad in scope have little value. The inclusion criteria of this article covers hundreds, if not thousands of lists that have very little in common. Take a look at [1], [2], Category:Top lists or Category:Lists. The list is clearly unmaintainable and serves little practical purpose. — Rankiri (talk) 00:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I only counted 20 or so in the Category:Top Lists. If WP can handle one article on each I don't see a reason why a list of them, each being notable, would be unmaintainable.Steve Dufour (talk) 04:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you check the subcategories and the rest of the given links? — Rankiri (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I checked out Category:Lists a bit, not every subcat, and only saw WP lists, not published lists. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Ignoring the reason for nomination, which can't be supported (Wikipedia would be rather bare if we removed everything that was not TPA), I'll provide a comment as I consider this one. Lists are always problematic when they become the subject of a deletion debate. My view is that they should be treated as encycopedic articles in their own right, so that they don't become a directory. This is consistent, I think, with WP:LIST. It's one thing to provide reliable verification for each individual entry in the list, but does the article's topic itself need to be verifiable? If so, do we need to verify (in this case) the concept of published lists, which after all is the article's subject? If so, how do we do that? Do we need to provide evidence that published lists are notable? I think the answer is "yes" to both questions and, accordingly, I'm leaning towards delete, but I'll need to give this one some more thought... Wikipeterproject (talk) 23:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per Rankiri. RFerreira (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ Delete per clear consensus that this is a problem article. Yes there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of published lists. However what is wrong with a list of some of the most notable? And yes my original reason for starting the article was to make a WP:Point, in this case to protest against articles on these very lists which reprint the contents of the list (a questionable practice in terms of copyright issues -- although I am not a lawyer). Now that I got the article started, however, I am pleased with it and I think that some readers might find it interesting and could learn something about the practice of published lists as well as, perhaps, checking out some of the lists themselves. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also please note that these lists have nothing to do with WP:List, although the list of them does. This seems to have been a source of misunderstanding. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lists get published every single day and many of them become quite notable. Governmental statistical reports, numerous "Top 20/40/100" ratings created by various periodicals, encyclopedic lists of statistics, various lists of people, places, actions, methods... According to your inclusion criteria, the list should include FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time, THES - QS World University Rankings, List of countries by population, List of Internet top-level domains, List of Nobel laureates, List of billionaires, List of designated terrorist organizations, Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, World Heritage List and who knows what else. What do all these published lists have in common? Nothing, except for an indiscriminate meta article created to demonstrate a point. Remember your words on WP:Articles for deletion/100 Worst Britons? "Article is lots of fun, but of no lasting notability." Well, you've had your fun. Now can you please stop fooling around and see WP:NOTDIR and WP:SALAT? — Rankiri (talk) 05:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The lists that you mentioned that were published in notable publications, not just on WP, could be added to this article with no problems.Steve Dufour (talk) 06:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just summarize my point and move on. Considering that all Wikipedia's entries must be attributed to published sources, the inclusion criteria for the list ("published informative or entertaining lists") is practically meaningless. The list is potentially unlimited and unmaintainable and was created for the sake of having such a list. WP:SALAT specifically says that lists that are too broad in scope have little value. WP:NOTDIR expands on this, stating that Wikipedia articles are not lists of loosely associated topics. Unless you can demonstrate a meaningful connection between such entries as The 50 Best Inventions of 2009, Seven deadly sins and America's Most Miserable Cities, the list looks like a direct violation of the above guidelines. — Rankiri (talk) 13:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Here is the introduction of the article: "Various publications have published lists to inform and sometimes to entertain their readers. This is a list of some of the more well-known." By "well-known" I intended to imply WP:Notable (or at least notable enough so that the list is mentioned in the WP article on the publication, as is the case of Golf World's "100 Best American Golf Courses.") Of course the publication itself also has to be WP:Notable. The Seven Deadly Sins list, like the Seven Wonders of the World, has been around before the invention of printing and other mass media so was not introduced in a notable publication. The other two you mentioned could be included if they and their publications meet WP's notability standards. Steve Dufour (talk) 14:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Open any textbook and you'll see dozens of lists (list of seas and oceans, list of chemical elements, etc.) that are published, notable and well-known. As for your objections, see [3] and [4] and please stop discussing every single example taken off the top of my head and address the bigger issue of indiscriminate selection criteria. — Rankiri (talk) 14:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would have no objection to explicitly restricting the list to those lists that have WP articles, and the publication also having an article. Textbooks usually do not. Steve Dufour (talk) 14:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not up to you though. I say List of oceans is a well-known list, informative and published[5]. According to the list's inclusion criteria, it has just as much right to be there as Fortune 500. — Rankiri (talk) 14:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find a source that shows where "List of oceans" was first published then include it by all means. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 14:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note also that WP does not have an article about "List of oceans" like it does about the Fortune 500. Steve Dufour (talk) 14:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First, the list is already filled with entries that have no WP articles. Second, the list's inclusion parameters don't support your personal views on what should and shouldn't be included. See WP:OR. Third, according to WP:TITLE, article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources. And finally, this discussion is truly going nowhere as you deliberately avoid the question of indiscrimination. I'll let other contributors weigh in on the issue. Perhaps, the consensus will be formed without the approval of the article's sole author. — Rankiri (talk) 15:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the talk page of the article. I would welcome other people's contributions. On the other hand, if I remain the sole contributor there will be no danger of the list becoming indiscriminate and unmaintainable. :-)Steve Dufour (talk) 15:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow keep - The silly pointy dance aside, the list can be absolutely worthwile if precise inclusion criteria are sorted for the list. Being "published" is clear but it seems to me a bit broad -however it can be OK if we then have sub-lists instead of individual entries. Maybe the original editor can help us understand what the scope should be. --Cyclopia ^talk 16:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Maybe I need help in the wording of the introduction. I kind of understand that, for instance, a "List of people from San Francisco" really means (on WP) a list of WP:Notable people whose origins in San Francisco have been documented in WP:Reliable sources. So what I intended to imply in my attempt at an intro was: "List of notable lists that were first published by notable publications." On the talk page I mentioned that I was limiting my entries to lists of over 100 items that have a useful life of at least a year. This would exclude the New York Times best seller list which changes every week. I said that if someone else added it I would not remove it, however, since it and the Times are clearly notable. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as long as the criteria of all lists -- notability -- is kept. Bearian (talk) 04:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as this list has no verifiable definition in accordance with WP:Source list, without which it is just a collection of loosely assoicated of topics without any externally validated rationale for inclusion in Wikipedia. A verifable definition is also needed to demonstrate that it is not the product of original research. Interesting though this may be, "interestingness" is not a valid inclusion criteria. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Someone is smoking the good stuff today on wikipedia.--Milowent (talk) 18:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: I restored my prior comment which Steve deleted in good faith. Its not a personal attack. If my humor wasn't clear enough, this is a RIDICULOUS discussion. Perhaps my opinion is worth little to some because I am not elaborating on it, but I can live with that.--Milowent (talk) 04:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Please tell is if you think the idea of a list of published lists is ridiculous or if the idea that that list should be deleted from Wikipedia is ridiculous. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Steve, the idea of this article is ridiculous. Yes, sometimes we have to apply common sense. The list will have no value, especially if you delete my marijuana entry.--Milowent (talk) 04:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete until Published lists becomes an article in its own right. If published lists are not notable enough for a stand-alone article, then a list of them isn't either. Wikipeterproject (talk) 07:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It should have its own article. There are dozens of articles about individual published lists. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. If anyone still has doubts about the future of such a list, its latest two entries are "List of 10 Best Marijuana Strains" and "List of Tigers' Woods Mistresses". Ridiculous, indeed. — Rankiri (talk) 16:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed them since they are not WP:Notable lists and not in notable publications. WP's notability policies govern every article and list on WP. I could have stated that in the first sentence of the article but I thought it was already implied. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And just so you know, I have all rights to revert that edit: [6], [7]. — Rankiri (talk) 16:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I added those two entries (sorry for the pointiness), but we could come up with thousands of lists that would pass "notability" as it seems to be defined for purposes of that article.--Milowent (talk) 04:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm here, let me also address some of the earlier points: even if such a list somehow passes WP:N, it doesn't change the fact that it still violates WP:SALAT, WP:NOTDIR, and WP:TITLE. According to the deletion policy, articles that fundamentally conflict with WP:NOT are not suitable for the encyclopedia. — Rankiri (talk) 16:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it fail WP:SALAT or WP:NOTDIR? The scope is huge, I agree, but we can have it as a collection of sub-lists, like Lists of people. Notable lists are indeed a notable subject, and they can (and should) be listed too. WP:TITLE is irrelevant because it can be dealt with moving the page to a more appropriate title, so it falls under WP:ATD. --Cyclopia ^talk 23:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What additional arguments do you require? As I said before, a complete lack of connection between such potential entries as "FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives", "List of oceans" and "List of Tiger Woods' mistresses" clearly marks it as a repository of loosely associated topics. As for the scope of the article, it's not simply huge. With 7,280,000 Google results for "published the list of" alone, the list is going to be virtually infinite and impossible to maintain. I also don't see any similarities with Lists of people or Lists of topics. These lists are Wikipedia's organizational portals. Their scope and inclusion criteria are quite different from those of the discussed article. If you wish to see more appropriate examples, consider List of books with lists or List of published photographs. — Rankiri (talk) 14:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think List of notable photographs would be a problem.Kitfoxxe (talk) 18:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Interesting list. It maybe could be retitled and explained better in the intro so that it is made clear that it is a list of notable "published lists." Kitfoxxe (talk) 18:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NW (Talk) 01:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete the very definition of listcruft, appears to have been created as a joke arising from a feud on an AFD (specifically, this one). See also WP:POINT. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 04:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going with delete here. First off, this is not a list of lists, this is a list of publications, explaining their lists. Second, it is the broadness of this category that worries me here. I'm not opposed to seeing some cleanup, but I'm not seeing much effort in fixing it. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 06:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete - This is the most insane idea I've ever heard. If you want wikipedia to be a second patent office, then you should probably support. But I don't find that especially helpful to the encyclopedia. Shadowjams (talk) 08:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It's difficult to think of how this article would actually be useful to anyone. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep, this article has a lot of potential if given the right scope and sourcing. Qrsdogg (talk) 13:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've been trying to see some potential, but there's no apparent organization, and I'm not sure how this could be organized to be useful. Perhaps if it was limited to annual lists that are a feature of a magazine (Fortune 500, U.S. News's college list, People's sexiest persons, etc.) and it included the information about when the list comes out (i.e., Fortune 500 usually comes out in July), it would be worthwhile. Alternatively, if it was divided along the lines of "people, places and things" then it would have value as a reference. I see a lot of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:ILIKEIT in the comments above, but it really comes down to whether someone would consult the article and find out something that didn't already know. I can't say that it's "a great idea" or "the most insane idea I've ever heard". I've seen better ideas, and I've definitely seen or heard more insane ideas than this.Mandsford (talk) 16:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mandsford. I changed my "vote" to delete and will restart the article (when I get around to it) following your suggestion to restrict it to notable annual lists and include secondary sources for each item. Steve Dufour (talk) 18:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the article is kept I will move it to a new title, "List of major annual lists in popular magazines" or something like that, and remove the nonconforming items. Steve Dufour (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:SALAT as an indiscriminate list, at least as currently defined. Rlendog (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I would agree with many of those that commented above, that the creation of this list-page indeed does appear to be a WP:POINT violation. Cirt (talk) 20:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's a reason to delete it. Most of the debate here seems to be about the motivation of the author. The article itself is not so bad. It should be kept with a better name and some cleaning and straightening up. Kitfoxxe (talk) 04:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It is also an indiscriminate list with seemingly no criteria. The name is inappropriate and too vague. It is unencyclopedic. It relies on and encourages WP:OR violation for its list population. Cirt (talk) 05:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Those are legitimate reasons to argue for deletion. :-) Kitfoxxe (talk) 05:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nod, agreed, thanks. Cirt (talk) 05:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:SALAT. The overly broad criteria for inclusion makes it hard for the contents to meet policies such as WP:IINFO and WP:OR. Them From Space 21:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Rankiri. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.