Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists
Stand-alone lists (also referred to as list articles) are articles composed of one or more embedded lists, or series of items formatted into a list. Many stand-alone lists identify their content's format in their titles, beginning with descriptors such as "list of", "timeline of", or similar.
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.
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 topic 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 an example, 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).
A person is typically included in a list of people only if all the following requirements are met:
There are some common exceptions to the typical notability requirement:
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 hundreds or thousands of people, such as the List of American film actresses.
Please document the list selection criteria on the talk page of the list.
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.
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