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" (List of sovereign states), "Timeline of" (Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic), or similar.

This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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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.

In the interests of centralization of advice, this guideline page includes content guidelines, listed first; for style guidelines particular to stand-alone lists, see § Style; for naming conventions, see § 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; and other guidelines on appropriate stand-alone lists. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual entries in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles.

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 non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations are touched upon in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not § Wikipedia is not a directory. Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability. Editors are still urged to demonstrate list notability via the grouping itself before creating stand-alone lists.

List contents

Content policies

Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not, as well as the notability guidelines.

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 business theorists, and List of bicycle manufacturing companies.
Chronological lists, such as Deaths in 2007 and 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

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WP:TYPEOFLIST

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.
Order of battle – a representation of armed force components that shows the hierarchical organization and command structure.
Lists of works include bibliographies and 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

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WP:SALAT

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 What Wikipedia is not, they feel that some topics are trivial, non-encyclopedic, or not related to human knowledge. If you create a list like the "list of shades of colors of apple sauce", be prepared to explain why you feel this list contributes to the state of human knowledge.

Lists of people

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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.

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WP:EXEMPT1E

There are some common exceptions to the typical notability requirement:

If the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have a Wikipedia article about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to: a) establish their membership in the list's group; and b) establish their notability on either BLP1E or 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 religion or on sexual orientation. For further information, see Wikipedia's policy on biographical information about living people, in particular the category/list policy for living persons. There is an editnotice available for lists of people: {{Editnotice for lists of people}}.

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 stub quality, there is little added value to split-off a list of taxa, nor is there much value to split-off a list if the number of taxa is relatively short, such as below 30 items. Although 30 items in a vertical row can already extend beyond what is visible on the screen without scrolling, the visual impact of an included list can be reduced by creating several columns. Another method to create the overview of the taxa involved is by including one or several cladograms, provided phylogenetic sources are available. If the number of taxa is too large and would upset the balance of an article, it is best to create a new list that is linked to the main article. The elements of such a list should consist of all accepted taxa on the closest lower level (see the figure on the right hand side) and all elements in the list should be linked to articles on those subtaxa, whether these exist (blue links) or not (red links). The links should be checked by following them to avoid linking to disambiguation pages or synonyms, particularly when dealing with lists of genera.

Lists of companies and organizations

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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

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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 § Titles for naming conventions.)

See also Wikipedia:Lists of lists for an informal essay on content, purpose, naming etc. of lists of lists.

Lists of words

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WP:LISTGLOSSARY

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 notable topic that already has its own main article on Wikipedia. A Featured example is Glossary of Texas A&M University terms. Stand-alone glossaries are categorized at Category:Wikipedia glossaries, as well as topically in article categories. Shorter ones are often better handled as embedded lists, though a redirect from a title like Glossary of X can be created to the section, and the redirect added to that category. Such embedded glossaries may split later into in stand-alone glossaries. (See WP:Summary style for information on when to split sections into child articles.) There are multiple ways of formatting glossaries. See § Titles for naming conventions.

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

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Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. Avoid original or arbitrary criteria that would synthesize a list that is not plainly verifiable in reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed, it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item.

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 Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a directory, repository of links, or means of promotion, and should not contain indiscriminate lists, only certain types of lists should be exhaustive. Criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence. For example, all known species within a taxonomic family are relevant enough to include in a list of them, but List of Norwegian musicians would not be encyclopedically useful if it indiscriminately included every garage band mentioned in a local Norwegian newspaper. While notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject, it may be too stringent for narrower lists; one of the functions of many lists on Wikipedia is providing an avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles, so common sense is required in establishing criteria for a list. Avoid red-linking list entries that are not likely to have their own article soon or ever.

Common selection criteria

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WP:CSC

Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of objective criteria:

Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the near future. Red-linked entries should be accompanied by citations sufficient to show that the entry is sufficiently notable for an article to be written on it (i.e., citations showing significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject). This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming a collection of indiscriminate lists; prevents individual list articles from becoming targets for spam and 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 32 KB) 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 redlinked (unwritten) articles, for the purpose of keeping track of which articles still need to be written—don't belong in the main namespace. Write these in your userspace, or in a Wikiproject's space, or list the missing articles at Wikipedia:Requested articles.

Citing sources

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WP:LISTVERIFY

Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, and they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations.

When an inline citation is not required by a sourcing policy and editors choose to name more sources than strictly required, then either general references or inline citations may be used. It is generally presumed that obviously appropriate material, such as the inclusion of apple in the list of fruits, does not require an inline citation.

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 occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this section should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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

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WP:SALLEAD

A stand-alone list should begin with a lead section that summarizes its content, provides any necessary background information, gives encyclopedic context, links to other relevant articles, and makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title. This introductory material is especially important for lists that feature little or no other non-list prose in their article body. Even when the selection criteria might seem obvious to some, an explicit standard is often helpful to both readers, to understand the scope, and other editors, to reduce the tendency to include trivial or off-topic entries. The lead section can also be used to explain the structure of embedded lists in the article body when no better location suggests itself.

Chronological ordering

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WP:SALORDER

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 Deaths in 2024, may use reverse chronological order for temporary convenience, although these articles should revert to non-reverse order when the article has stabilized, as is the case with Deaths in 2003.

Categories, lists and navigation templates

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 taxobox may suffice but for the more speciose genera such as Anopheles it is probably better to move these into their own page. The bulk of the page will be taken up by the list. Such lists do qualify as encyclopedic: for many of these genera there are specialized monographs to assist in the identification of these species.

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 guideline section documents an English Wikipedia naming convention.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this section should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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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 list's subject. Many lists are not intended to contain every possible member, but this does not need to be explained in the title itself. For example, the correct choice is List of people from the Isle of Wight, not List of people who were born on or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight and about whom Wikipedia has an article. Instead, the detailed criteria for inclusion should be described in the lead, and a reasonably concise title should be chosen for the list. Best practice is to avoid words like notable, famous, noted, prominent, etc. in the title of a list article. Similarly, avoid titles like List of all Xs.

People: People by nationality are either List of Finns or Lists of French people, preferring List of ___ people. United States folk are a special case: List of United States people redirects to Lists of Americans which contains, amongst other things, lists by US state. (Special treatment is necessary because American is 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.

Set index articles do not need to be titled with list of unless there is also another article or a disambiguation page using that title. For example, Dodge Charger is a list of cars named Dodge Charger, but does not need to be titled List of cars named Dodge Charger. However, since Signal Mountain is a disambiguation page, the related set index article is at List of peaks named Signal Mountain.

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.