Lists serve as an organizing tool. They show what we have and don't have. [[List of people from the United States]] is too broad to be of much use, but [[List of boogie woogie musicians]] is invaluable, both as an aid to those of us working on the topic, but also the reader. There may never be a full article on Drive'em Down, the legendary New Orleans piano player, but he's in the Wikipedia, and in a place where his contributions can be best understood.
In addition to their use as indexes, the "Related changes" and "What links here" are helpful to writers working in a particular area and the talk pages serve as a meeting place.
There are all kinds of lists.
The best lists are:
- confined to a single graspable topic. If the topic is vast, the better lists will have been largely assembled by some outside authority, Hall of Fame or the like.
- annotated, why is the person place or thing on the list?
- organized in a useful fashion. They can be grouped by topic, in alphabetical order, or chronological, whatever helps make the list more useful.
Further observations:
- [[List of novelists]] is barely tolerable. It is huge, but at least it is grouped by an amalgam of language/country identifiers that is not intellectually rigorous. but works for the reader.
- [[List of gay movies]] is in alphabetical order and unannotated. I have been arguing on thetalk page that if it were annotated (why is ''Rebel Without a Cause'' a gay movie) and in chronological order (showing changing attitudes) it would be more useful (and interesting, always a big number with me).
- [[List of musical topics]] is vast, alphabetical, and unannotated, but it shows the scope of Wikipedia and give music-minded writers something to chew on.
- The alphabetical biography lists are much more useful if they are annotated, which has been a side project of mine.
- [[One hit wonders]] went immediately off the tracks. It started as a list ofthose odd but classic numbers but was quickly mired down by objections that so-and-so had had two hits (one of which was never heard of and did not matter) and also by diligent folks with reference books listing every song that had ever been on any hit parade for at least a week.
I'm very pro-list, and willing to take the good with the bad.
If [[List of Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles]] shows up, so be it. [[List of glass harmonicists]] will soon be along to make up for it.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88