Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists/Archive 1

message: Discussion atarted at: Talk:Listing of noted atheists
Who cares about these people being atheists? I find it of little encyclopedic value to have this list around; same for the other lists of noted (religion x)s. These lists would only be useful if they contained people who are actively proclaiming their opinion on this topic, and are known for that. Not just a bunch of actors that happen to share some opinion. We might just as well make a list of noted people that have a hamster as a pet... jheijmans
I am tempted to agree. Does anybody want to argue the case for listing everyone who might happen to be an atheist here? --Robert Merkel
These types of lists aren't really useful. Although I wouldn't like to see lists of noted persons in certain professions go away. 
Religious affiliation seems peripheral in importance to me (but then, so does sexual orientation. See: Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people). --maveric149 
I also would tend to agree; a listing of people whose atheistic beliefs are relevant to what they've accomplished in life and how they present themselves would be interesting, but a mish-mash of people who happen to be atheists and also happen to be somewhat famous? Maybe someone might like it, but I don't really care. (On the other hand, I'm not a militant atheist. The kind of people who want to see Christmas Day removed as a national holiday might think otherwise.) --Brion VIBBER
------
These lists are useful as an expression of support or community for minorities or out-groups. Many adolescents find these especially useful - "Gee, I always thought I was the only 'X'!" 
I think these lists are a valuable service in this regard, and we can´t make any case against them that outweighs this value. Again - if you don't like these lists, don't read them! :-)
:I've made that exact same argument in the past, but these things are getting less and less useful. 
:The debate is on whether we should list *all* 'X's, or whether we should restrict the list to people whose X'ism is part of the reason they are encyclopedia-worthy.For instance, Bob Hawke was agnostic, and worthy of an encyclopedia article here, but does he warrant an appearance on a list of noted agnostics? I would argue not. --Robert Merkel
I'd say this is pretty simple: People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them - it's not like the lists are hurting anything. I think we need to be very wary of judging what "we" consider to be "encyclopedia worthy". Personally, I'd remove all articles on video and computer games, rap music, US counties, and I'd seriously consider removing everything on professional sports. Fortunately, my opinion on these things isn't important. Live and let live. Work on the subjects you like. :-)
----
:Indeed. I'm certainly not arguing against the existence of the list, just for some judicial trimming to make it an interesting and informative list. Expressions of support for out-groups are lovely and wonderful, but they're advocacy, which isn't really the mission of an encyclopedia. All-inclusive lists of famous people who were/are/might have been atheists for the purpose of making dejected teenages feel better can be found in warmer, fuzzier places that are specifically pro-atheism -- , , , ,  were the first five that came up in a google search for "famous atheists".
:Want to include some links to advocacy sites at the bottom of an article about people who are noted for being atheists? Fine by me! What to have "a partial list of persons believed to be atheists"? What's the point? --Brion VIBBER
The point is to have a partial list of persons believed to be atheists, of course! (what Wikipedia article can claim to be "complete"?) (and the same for lists of other types of persons 'X')(Though I'd like a slightly more rigorous standard than "believed to be") 
Sturgeon's Law says "90% of everything is crap". 
90% of Wikipedia is crap.
'However', one person's crap is another person's fertilizer. We do NOT all agree on *which* 90%! As I said above, I detest a lot of what I see on Wikipedia. However, I understand very well that *somebody* likes it (and "somebody" is generally at least several thousand people, I'd guess). I think when we work on Wikipedia, we should confine ourselves to 1)writing what we believe to be true 2)correcting what we believe to be false 3)making things more NPOV. I *don't* think we should be in the business of judging what others might find useful or interesting.
:To say "People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them." misses the point. The point is that no encyclopedia or almanac for that matter would simply list noted persons of any faith just because they happen to be a member of that faith (or anti-faith as in this case). This would be the true even if they were like wikipedia and did't have paper contraints; because such lists are inherently non-neutral propoganda designed to make other people with similar views feel good about themselves (and wikipedia is attempting to be a neutral encyclopedia that has some almanac type information -- such as valid lists of noted professionals who are famous because they advanced their profession). Think of the hideous hugeness a Christian list might become (or the inevitable controversy over who is "really" a Christian rubbish). Brion is right, if there is to be such as list it must be short and informative and, as Robert said, the people listed should be famous in relation to, at least, being X faith -- just because they were otherwise famous and a member of X faith doesn't count. The problem with having these lists is that they can never be said to be nearly complete, are oftentimes difficult to verify, many people change their faith several times during their lives and others only pretended to be faithful or are not considered to have belonged to a certain faith by some groups. In addition, having "Listing of X faith" encourages the creation of other such meaningless lists and brings down the average quality of wikipedia. I'm starting to see a strong consensus here that this page in its current form is not informative and should either be fixed or remain in the deletion queue for final review. I don't see any reason why this page shouldn't be copied over to the meta though. Hard drive space is cheap, but wikipedia's strived for reputation for NPOV content is a very important goal -- these faith and related lists are more proselytizing propoganda than anything else -- this also goes for Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people too (I'm both atheist and gay BTW). --maveric149
I agree that these lists should go. If there is any justification to keeping them, it would be only after they are trimmed down to include only people who are famous because of their affiliation. In other words, a list of famous atheists should only include people who contributed to atheism and are famous for doing so (Madeleine Murray O'Hare comes to mind). In that case, the list could be appended to the Atheism article. I feel the same way about the list of famous gay people, Jews, Prussians, Canadians, etc. Oh, and I am very much opposed to the list of "Beautiful Italians," which puts these lists to shame. Danny
The value of a "List of foos" article is that it pulls together many disparate elements when such a list has no appropriate home elsewhere, for example List of famous gay, lesbian or bisexual people. But on the other hand, Marketing contains both general information about marketing as well as an extensive list of marketing subtopics -- so there is no need for a List of marketing topics (in my opinion anyway). -- Cyan 06:20, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of atheists and similar lists of people 

message: ===Lists of people===
*Commas, periods, wikification (see also Talk:Lists of people):
#Kenneth Kaunda (1924-), President of Zambia
#Kenneth Kaunda, (1924 -), President of Zambia.
*Alias: italics, placement
#Zeljko Raznatovic ("Arkan"), (2000), Serb paramilitary leader.
#Khalil Wazir, (1988), ("Abu Jihad") military leader of the PLO.
#Le Corbusier (1887-1965), (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret)
*Approx. DOB/lifespan
#David Rizzio (~1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (c. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (approx. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (1533?-1566?), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland
Any preference or suggested version? 
----
Some of mine:
*1. Kenneth Kaunda (1924-), President of Zambia
*3. Le Corbusier (1887-1965), (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret)
*1. David Rizzio (~1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
--User:Docu
mine:
*1 or 2 - no pref
* 1. Zeljko Raznatovic ("Arkan"), (2000), Serb paramilitary leader. (name next to name)
* 2. David Rizzio (c. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
--Martin 11:23, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Formatting of lists 

message: *Commas, periods, wikification (see also Talk:Lists of people):
#Kenneth Kaunda (1924-), President of Zambia
#Kenneth Kaunda, (1924 -), President of Zambia.
*Alias: italics, placement
#Zeljko Raznatovic ("Arkan"), (2000), Serb paramilitary leader.
#Khalil Wazir, (1988), ("Abu Jihad") military leader of the PLO.
#Le Corbusier (1887-1965), (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret)
*Approx. DOB/lifespan
#David Rizzio (~1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (c. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (approx. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
#David Rizzio (1533?-1566?), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland
Any preference or suggested version? 
----
Some of mine:
*1. Kenneth Kaunda (1924-), President of Zambia
*3. Le Corbusier (1887-1965), (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret)
*1. David Rizzio (~1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
--User:Docu
mine:
*1 or 2 - no pref
* 1. Zeljko Raznatovic ("Arkan"), (2000), Serb paramilitary leader. (name next to name)
* 2. David Rizzio (c. 1533-1566), private secretary of Mary I of Scotland 
--Martin 11:23, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Lists of people

message: Can anybody explain where [this obsession with lists] is going to end? I think that an enciclopedia reflects the culture of who creates it. In the wiki case it's the whole world. Do we want to live in a world where people are catalogued in this principles? Does anybody is really serious about this listing-cataloguing-mania? I can invent so many examples of unreasonable lists that i make a suggestion: we have a wiki-quote, a wikctonary, why not a WIKILIST? Then we can remove all this nonsense (my NPOV, i assume) to there and give space to the List maniacs to create them at their leisure. Cheers all, Muriel Gottrop 09:20, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikilists: that's an excellent idea, Muriel. Dysprosia 09:23, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: I'd say such a list function would be a valuable addition to the Wikipedia itself, but wouldn't be very useful as a seperate project, unless the entries in the lists linked to the Wikipedia articles and the articles link back to the appropriate lists (which is pretty much the same thing as having the list part of the 'pedia in the first place).  If Wikipedia is about creating order from chaos, and do it in a way that paper can't, then lists provide a valuable way to find connections and relationships.  The fact that some lists seem silly at a glance, or are going to be so inclusive as to be useless, is an artifact that will be self-correcting in the long run. Jgm 12:22, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: So your objection is not to the existence of these lists, but rather to their integration into the encyclopaedia? Would the entries on these lists link to Wikipedia articles? Would we be allowed to link to the "Listipedia" from the Wikipedia? If not, they lose most of their value. The more integrated information is, the more useful it is. If we are going to have the lists anyway, what advantage is there to removing their connection from the rest of the Wikipedia? -- Oliver P. 03:07, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, my objection is to keep them in the wikipedia. And i think all the people/things should be linked to the wiki-article. Could a bot do this? My main concern is to see Wikipedia nominated for the Ignobel Prize because of the listing mania. I created Wikipedia:Wikitrivia discussion to host this discussion. Hope to see you there. And i adore Aaron's suggestion below! Yes, lists like that is all what wikipedia really needs. Muriel Gottrop 07:32, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiList? 

message: There doesn't seem to be a standard on how to order a list based on time (e.g. Filmography).  Some do it earliest first, some latest first (I prefer earliest first).  Any comments? Lefty 00:05, 2004 Apr 23 (UTC)
:Reverse chronological order is useful in situations (like your job resume) when you want to make it easy to find the most recent items on the list, especially if the list is very long. I would say reverse would be useful if a list is much longer than one screen, and if most people would be looking for the most recent items. Actors start out in minor roles and become progressively more famous, so most people would be looking for their most recent films. Otherwise, if a list is historical (items are no longer being added to the list), such as the kings of an ancient kingdom, then chronological order makes sense. GUllman 21:04, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of time-based lists 

message: In the biography for Kylie Minogue, there is an very long list of all her 45rpms and albums. Similar such listings can be found for many other singers/actresses/authors and the like. At the same time, in the biography of Jack Pickford, there was a partial list of films he appeared in that was  removed by User:Frecklefoot with the reason "commented out overlong filmograph." I’m fairly new here so don’t want to do things that established and valuable contributors have determined as unacceptable. I'm starting on a biography for silent film actress Pauline White but because I am now not certain what is proper, can someone tell me if I should follow User:Frecklefoot's  policy when I create new biographies and not include a filmography/list of albums/45s/CDs, or books etc? Similarly, if I edit an existing biography, should I also delete the filmography, list of albums/45s/CDs, books etc?  Jill
:This was hashed out a while ago.  I probably did comment out a very long list (if I deleted it, it can be retreived via the pages history).  I dislike really long lists in article, especially filmographies when the information is available via other sites, such as the IMDb.  I find that they add little but clutter to articles.  However, it was decided that very long lists should go on a seperate page, such as List of John Doe's movies.  Most felt that Wikipedia should not rely on outside websites for complete information.  So, if its a really long list, put it on a seperate page.  If it's fairly brief, it can go in the main article. I hope this clears things up. :-) —Frecklefoot 19:43, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
::A rule to consider: Suppose you create List of Xs relating to Y. If the only page that will link to it is Y then you may as well have List Of Y thingies on the Y page, otherwise you are just making navigation unnecessarily difficult for the user for the sake of bumping up the page count by 1. The 32k page size caveat still applies even to list pages though - long edit pages hinder some browsers. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:54, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Really Long Lists

message: Arnfjörð Bjarmason thinks the article at sexual slang should be in bulleted list form.  I think this makes the page look too vertical and it should be reverted back to its previous form. What do other people think?  Andy5 15:57, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Really, really long lists

message: I think lists of lists would be easier to use if each item didn't start with "list of."
Maurreen 07:25, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  lists of lists 

message: (Copied Jayjg's vote from there.)
*Delete. As useful as most Wikipedia lists, that is to say, not at all, since inherently un-maintainable, and comprehensive list would have tens of thousands of entries making it useless. Jayjg 12:23, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  From [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of villains]] 

message: Please see the discussion about capitalization of list items: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style. Cacycle 22:39, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of list entries 

message: The project page states
:As a matter of style, do not capitalize list items...
I had a hard time finding where this was being following, in the wikipedia or anywhere else. Standard English usage is to capitalize the first letter of each item in a bulleted or numbered list. This avoids the incongruity of having some items capitalized and some not when common nouns and proper nouns are mixed in the same list, or sentence fragments mixed with complete sentences.
In addition, the example used for the horizontal list actually uses capitalized items. This is also against standard english usage, where items on a line like that are only capitalized if they are proper nouns.
My proposal is to add a section titled "Capitalization" that looks like this:
----
Items in lists should be capitalized according to the following rules:
For ordered lists, unordered lists and definition lists, the first word of each item should be capitalized. Other words on that line should only be capitalized if they are proper nouns.
 == Title of list ==
 * Example one, more words
 * Example two, more words with one a Proper Noun
 * Example three
For streamlined or horizontal lists, only proper nouns and the first word introducing the list should be capitalized.
 Title of list: example one, example two, example three has a Proper Noun 
----
Alternatively, we could just leave it out, but conform the examples to these suggestions and people will still get the idea.  Its silly to leave it as-is, though.  Chuck 23:12, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the main reasons for the current rule (no matter how poorly it is followed in actual practice) is that there are many cases where capitalized version (the proper noun) and the lower-case version (the common noun) can mean fairly different things, so using the lower-case version when you mean the common noun helps prevent any ambiguity. BlankVerse ∅ 13:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I guess that makes sense, it just seems like we'd be swimming upstream:(i) most lists in articles already use caps, (ii) the table of contents does not conform to this guideline, (iii) the category system does not conform to this guideline, (iv) it contradicts what many consider standard typesetting convention, (v) it is the style that new users would be least likely to utilize, and (v) it only prevents ambiguity if people feel they can trust that lists generally conform. Why not just eplicitly address ambiguity in the cases where it arises? Chuck 19:30, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I completely agree with Chuck. Also the Wikipedia user interface and the Main Page contain only capitalized lists. The current rule was 'invented' by Patrick six months ago without any discussion. Cacycle 21:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wrote down what was already customary in Wikipedia, and what I think makes most sense. By the way, note that capitalization in lists of article names is a separate discussion, this is about arbitrary lists.--Patrick 07:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: If by "appropriate changes" you mean restoring the previous, well-founded guideline of having list entries capitalized, I don't object. —jiy (talk) 20:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists lowercase? 

message: I am hoping to generate a naming convention for long lists that are broken up alphabetically.  Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) and thank you in advance for any input you might have. -- Reinyday, 14:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for discussion of naming convention for long lists 

message: Should comma-separated horizontal style lists end with a dot or not? I would prefer the dot. Cacycle 22:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should comma-separated lists end with a dot 

message: I think we should institute a cap on the percentage of any article that can be a list, thereby requiring that every article contain a minimum of non-list material, thereby making it a legitimate article.  As a starting point, I propose 75%: at least 25% of an article's content must be non-list material.  The Literate Engineer 21:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capping List %. 

message: I've nominated for deletion all Lists of companies type articles (collected in Lists of companies) with named exceptions and others that may be proposed. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of companies. Rd232 talk 13:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists of companies - proposed for deletion 

message: 1) Do you like "sister cities" in paragraph: 
Albuquerque has nine sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI): Ashgabat (Turkmenistan), Chihuahua (Mexico), Gijon (Spain), Helmstedt (Germany), Lanzhou (China), Sasebo (Japan), Guadalajara (Mexico), Hua Lien (Taiwan), and Alburquerque (Spain). 
2) Or list form: 
Albuquerque has nine sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI): 
 
*Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
*Chihuahua, Mexico
*Gijon, Spain
*Helmstedt, Germany
*Lanzhou, China
*Sasebo, Japan
*Guadalajara, Mexico
*Hua Lien, Taiwan
*Alburquerque, Spain
3) Two column list/mini table:
Albuquerque has nine sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):
*Alburquerque, Spain
*Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
*Chihuahua, Mexico
*Gijon, Spain
*Guadalajara, Mexico	
*Helmstedt, Germany
*Hua Lien, Taiwan
*Lanzhou, China
*Sasebo, Japan
4) Infobox: Taipei is using a table at the bottom of the article:
Asunción |  Atlanta | Banjul | Bissau | Boston | Cleveland | Cotonou | Dakar | Dallas |  Gold Coast | Guatemala City | Ho Chi Minh City | Houston | Indianapolis | Jeddah | Johannesburg | La Paz | Lilongwe | Lomé | Los Angeles | Majuro | Managua | Manila |  Marshall | Mbabane | Monrovia | Oklahoma City | Panama City |  Phoenix | Pretoria | Quezon City | Riga | San Francisco |  San José |  San Nicolas | San Salvador | Santo Domingo | Seoul | Tegucigalpa | Ulaanbaatar | Ulan Ude | Versailles | Vilnius | Warsaw
:: NOTE Constanţa - has them in an infobox on the top-right hand side, with the flag, seal, map, etc. CHECK IT OUT!
5) Table, Gold Coast, Queensland:
Country                 	City (and Province or State)
Australia               	Shoalhaven, New South Wales
China                   	Beihai,  Guangxi Zhuang
France                  	Noumea, New Caledonia island territory
Greece                  	Corfu
Israel                  	Netanya
Japan                   	Kanagawa, Takasu-cho, and Hokkaido
New Zealand             	Horowhenua
Taiwan                  	Taipei
United Arab Emirates    	Dubai
United States of America	Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
===Info===
Many of the city articles have the year (and/or day & month) that they became a sister city after the city (Jinan, Nuremberg, Melbourne):
* Osaka, Japan - 1978 
or
* Freetown, Sierra Leone (March 20, 1984) 
Some have an external link after (Kobe, Ludwigshafen am Rhein):
*Seattle, United States - 1957 
or
*Antwerp - http://www.antwerpen.be/
A very few have it broken into sub-headings for foriegn and domestic (Akita, Akita, Kesennuma, Miyagi):
====International Sister / Friendship Cities====
*August 5, 1982: Lanzhou, People's Republic of China
*April 8, 1984: Passau, Germany
*January 22, 1992: Kenai, United States of America
*June 29, 1992: Vladivostok, Russia
====Japanese Sister Cities====
*Hitachiōta, Ibaraki
*Daigo, Kuji District Ibaraki
===Current Stats===
I did a ramdom sample of 200 cities: 
  
* 24  (12%) Only had ONE sister city, so I discount them. 
  
* 34  (17%) Are in PARAGRAPH form. 
  
* 142 (71%) Are LIST format: 
Between Paragraph and List it is: 
*List - 81% 
*Paragraph - 19% 
===NOW:===
Which is easier to read and decipher faster?
This example is for Albuquerque, now try it for Istanbul, which has 26 sister cities, what a NIGHTMARE that would be to read in paragraph form! Yerevan has 24.
Writing for the Web is very different from writing for print:
* 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word 
* Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper 
* Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent 
Bulleted and numbered lists slow down the scanning eye and can draw attention to important points. 
Lists: You can include a greater number of lists on a web page than on a printed paper page.Use numbered lists when the order of entries is important.Use unnumbered lists whenever the sequence of the entries is not important.Limit the number of items in a single list to no more than nine.Generally, limit lists to no more than two levels: primary and secondary.
by Jakob Nielsen, distinguished engineer; PJ Schemenaur, technical editor; and Jonathan Fox, editor-in-chief, www.sun.com
Lists are useful because they emphasize certain information in regular text. When you see a list of three or four items strung out vertically on the page, rather than in normal paragraph format, you naturally notice it more and are likely to pay more attention to it. Certain types of lists also make for easier reading. For example, in instructions, it is a big help for each step to be numbered and separate from the preceding or following steps. Lists also create more white space and spread out the text so that pages don't seem like solid walls of words. Online Technical Writing: Lists
WikiDon 21:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fred: How can you say that? Don't these cities articles need to be of a similar look and feel to the reader? Isn't having different formatting in each city article in not acceptable according to Wikipedia policy? Why have a Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Guide to layout at all if you feel that way? If the reader finds different formatting for every article that they go to, won't some of them may become frustrated with the experience and not return? WikiDon 17:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The manual of style is not a forced policy. Although a common structure is nice, I can see no reason why it is necessary to force it for the the description of sister cities. If it is a merely a listing of cities, use a list; if it can be turned into nice prose, write prose. // Fred-Chess 07:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paragraph or List? 

message: Which is easier to read and decipher faster?
This example is for Albuquerque, now try it for Istanbul, which has 26 sister cities, what a NIGHTMARE that would be to read in paragraph form! Yerevan has 24.
Writing for the Web is very different from writing for print:
* 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word 
* Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper 
* Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent 
Bulleted and numbered lists slow down the scanning eye and can draw attention to important points. 
Lists: You can include a greater number of lists on a web page than on a printed paper page.Use numbered lists when the order of entries is important.Use unnumbered lists whenever the sequence of the entries is not important.Limit the number of items in a single list to no more than nine.Generally, limit lists to no more than two levels: primary and secondary.
by Jakob Nielsen, distinguished engineer; PJ Schemenaur, technical editor; and Jonathan Fox, editor-in-chief, www.sun.com
Lists are useful because they emphasize certain information in regular text. When you see a list of three or four items strung out vertically on the page, rather than in normal paragraph format, you naturally notice it more and are likely to pay more attention to it. Certain types of lists also make for easier reading. For example, in instructions, it is a big help for each step to be numbered and separate from the preceding or following steps. Lists also create more white space and spread out the text so that pages don't seem like solid walls of words. Online Technical Writing: Lists
WikiDon 21:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: '''NOW:'''

message: *LIST WikiDon 21:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fred: How can you say that? Don't these cities articles need to be of a similar look and feel to the reader? Isn't having different formatting in each city article in not acceptable according to Wikipedia policy? Why have a Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Guide to layout at all if you feel that way? If the reader finds different formatting for every article that they go to, won't some of them may become frustrated with the experience and not return? WikiDon 17:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The manual of style is not a forced policy. Although a common structure is nice, I can see no reason why it is necessary to force it for the the description of sister cities. If it is a merely a listing of cities, use a list; if it can be turned into nice prose, write prose. // Fred-Chess 07:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: VOTE

message: What does a list achieve that a suitably-written category page does not?
Category pages are dynamically updated. Furthermore, a category page can have introductory text meaning it can easily replace any 'List of...' article. In terms of maximising our usage of the technology lists seem to me to be totally pointless. --kingboyk 13:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lists can be annotated. older≠wiser 13:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True. A feature which could be added for Category entries, but isn't there yet. I'll have to Fold. --kingboyk 22:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories 

message: Could the shortcut WP:LIST point to this Lists page? haz (user talk) 20:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:LIST does this now. -- Omniplex 02:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shortcut WP:LIST