Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

User:Shyam/List Namespace, archived debate, and summary of prior proposals (all rejected)

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 45 days are automatically archived 2 or more at a time by if there are more than 5.

Nomination of Relict hominid for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Relict hominid is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Relict hominid until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the AfD notice from the article until the discussion is closed.

—Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:List of suicides § RfC: Should "List of suicides" be split into chronological subarticles?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of suicides § RfC: Should "List of suicides" be split into chronological subarticles?. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 04:43, 2 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at AfD

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iran–United States war. –Gluonz^{talk contribs} 05:06, 2 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Help in getting consensus on how List of monuments and memorials to Wojtek should look

Hi, there's a discussion on how List of monuments and memorials to Wojtek should look, and it's not going anywhere. Would anyone care to join and give their opinion? Artemis Andromeda (talk) 01:02, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete and dynamic lists

Dynamic lists are justified thus:

Some lists, such as List of numbers, are intentionally inexhaustive, as they are only meant to list notable examples from a given category. These are known as "dynamic lists" and should be preceded by the [Dynamic list] template. Some dynamic lists require updates: for example, a list of notable alumni from a given university, or Lists of plants may need to be updated as clades and classifications are debated by botanists.

This seems to go against what we can read on the template itself:

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

(The expression "particular standards" seems off, but bear with me.)

That "may" implies we may wish to complete the dynamic list. Which means the "intentionally exhaustive" is too strong. As is, it contradicts the text that follows:

It is our hope that other Wikipedians will pick up where we leave off, and add more items to the list, bringing it, if not to completion, at least to a mature state in which only minor updates are required as times change.

As far as I can tell, a dynamic list is simply for cases where the very idea of having a complete list makes little sense, like numbers but perhaps more like series of ongoing events.

If we accept that a dynamic list is only for notable cases, then it's a subset of lists with at least one selection criterion.

(The concept of "notable list" also has problems, but that's enough for now.) Selbstporträt (talk) 20:05, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The template does combine two concepts: 1) list that are dynamic and not ever intended to be complete 2) lists that need improvement. I most often see this template used for standalone university alumni lists. In that case, the list would never to inclusive of all alumni, but could nevertheless be expanded. Maybe that is where the current template wording comes from. I think it would be more helpful to have two templates: one to identify dynamic lists (following your definitions) and another to encourage additions. As you suggest, mixing the two is confusing and not really what is needed. Rublamb (talk) 23:05, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If we look at the example of the List of alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, it advertises its inclusion criteria in the lead:

It is not exhaustive of all attendees diploma of degree programs at the drama school (not summer courses), only of notable persons who can be reliably sourced as students

Some editors seem to be using the "dynamic template" to do that job. And in one sense it is a dynamic list: there's always new alumni!

But a dynamic list can seek to be exhaustive, like the List of Nintendo Switch games (A–Am). Most of these items don't have a page. It's just a dynamic list because, well, Nintendo can publish more and more Switch games!

One of the goals of the project is to promote the "standards of Featured list criteria". For our purpose, the main characteristic we seek is comprehensiveness:

It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items.

Completeness should always be our first objective. If that's not practical, then we want comprehensiveness. Notability could be one way to obtain all the "major" items from a list, but that's just one way.

Calling it "notable" gets us into fights where editors delete major entries and destroy information that prevent us to have comprehensive or even lists that could practically be exhaustive, if not outright complete.

(I'm using "complete" to designate a degree of certainty that exhaustivity may not have.) Selbstporträt (talk) 00:16, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated List of Meerkat Manor meerkats for featured list removal

I have nominated List of Meerkat Manor meerkats for featured list removal. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:12, 26 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

List size limit

Is there an official size limit for lists?

There is a discussion at WP:SAL where editors said they want to keep 32KB in a parenthetical remark from an example of selection criteria that involves complete lists, a remark that dates back to when Firefox had memory issues.

I have not seen any guidance anywhere else that says complete lists need to be shorter than any other kind of lists. Selbstporträt (talk) 21:38, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The only guidance I know of has to do with limits of a list's content, rather than size. See MOS:LONGSEQ and WP:SPLITLIST Rublamb (talk) 00:41, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. What I got so far is in my references for an essay I am writing on the art of listmaking. (It's a very rough draft.) Selbstporträt (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]