Wikilists (2nd version)
Wikilists is a proposal for a new WikiMedia project to create lists of related topics. The proposal is an attempt to reduce the amount of "listcruft" on Wikipedia while keeping valid lists that contain information that is interesting, but is not believed to be encyclopedic enough for Wikipedia.
Reason for project[edit]
On the English Wikipedia, there are thousands of articles in w:Category:Lists. Many of them are associated with an article, eg. w:Hoax and w:List of hoaxes. Many of them are well-sourced, of a manageable size, and complete. Many, however, are not. Several of them get listed for deletion and deleted as "listcruft", and arguably they are (eg. en:List of songs whose title contains the entire lyric for one that has survived so far). However, that doesn't mean that these lists don't have a purpose. Thus, there seems to be a need for Wikilists.
Principles[edit]
Like other Wikimedia projects, Wikilists will need to follow some basic principles, suggestions as follows:
- Verifiability: Lists, and the items in them, must be verifiable through reference to sources. However, unlike Wikipedia, reliable primary sources are valid (and possibly recommended in some cases).
- Neutral point of view: Lists cannot be about the "best" or "worst", or in any other way be judged based solely on a person's own opinion. Lists about things that have been considered best or worst, however, may be allowed as long as they are clear with the other principles (eg. w:List of films considered the worst ever).
- Avoid self-reference: Unlike the Wikipedia policy, this isn't about avoiding references to Wikilists itself, but about avoiding lists where it is necessary to consider whether or not a list belongs in itself (or in another list which may create a circular reference). See w:Russell's paradox. Lists of lists are fine, if appropriate.
- Avoid redundancy: While it is useful to have multiple copies of the same list organised by different keys, there must be a good reason why those keys are used (eg. it may be useful to have a list for "Elements ordered by atomic number" and "Elements ordered alphabetically by symbol", but not "Elements ordered by mention in Tom Lehrer's Elements Song", even disregarding the copyright violation that would present).
- Free content only: GFDL as always.
No principle such as w:Wikipedia:No Original Research would apply, as long as the list was verifiable.
Possible applications[edit]
Many lists on Wikipedia contain a large amount of redundancy, such as ordering a large list by many different variables. Instead, either a Wikipedia article could contain a direct link to its related list on Wikilists, or there can be a single main list on Wikipedia organised by a primary property, and a boilerplate that says "For lists of foo organised by bar/other properties, see the related page on Wikilists".
Lists that are placed up for deletion on WM projects would have the option of Transwiki to Wikilists, thus preserving them while keeping them out of inappropriate projects.
There may be a separate "Meta:" namespace for lists that relate back to Wikimedia
Proposed by[edit]
- ConMan. I am mainly a contributor on the English Wikipedia, but welcome messages on my talk page either here or there.
Alternative names[edit]
- Wikilists
- Wikilist
- Wikicollections
- Wikisets
Related projects/proposals[edit]
Domain names[edit]
- http://www.wikilists.org (not registered)
- http://wikilist.org (for sale)
- http://wikilists.com (for sale)
- http://wikilists.net (registered)